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Mariners Likely To Open With Six-Man Rotation

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The Mariners are planning to begin the season with a six-man rotation in place, general manager Jerry Dipoto told reporters yesterday (Twitter link via Greg Johns of MLB.com). That tactic should allow the Seattle club the opportunity to manage the innings of younger arms on a per-game basis while also maximizing their opportunity to evaluate some up-and-coming arms who could factor into the long-term outlook.

Recently extended southpaw Marco Gonzales seems likely to get the Opening Day nod as the Mariners’ most established starter, and the team will hope for better results from 29-year-old lefty Yusei Kikuchi in the second season of his uniquely structured free-agent deal. Kikuchi, who had established himself as one of Nippon Professional Baseball’s premier arms prior to 2019, is locked in at $43MM from 2019-21. After the contract’s third year, Seattle can pick up a four-year, $66MM “option.” If the club declines to do so, Kikuchi can instead exercise a $13MM player option. In essence, he’s guaranteed $56MM over four years, while the M’s have the opportunity to lock him up at what would be a total of seven years and $109MM if he takes his game to a new level between now and the completion of the 2021 campaign.

Beyond that pair of lefties, Seattle will get longer looks at southpaw Justus Sheffield and righty Justin Dunn — two key trade acquisitions that came over in the 2018-19 offseason. Sheffield, a former first-rounder and longtime top prospect, was the headline piece of the trade that sent James Paxton to the Yankees. Dunn came to the Mariners alongside vaunted outfield prospect Jarred Kelenic and righty reliever Gerson Bautista in the Robinson Cano/Edwin Diaz blockbuster.

The Mariners also rolled the dice on a pair of low-cost free agents this winter, nabbing former division rival Kendall Graveman and former Mariner Taijuan Walker on one-year pacts. Both have seen their careers slowed by 2018 Tommy John surgery. Graveman, who had his procedure in late July that year, didn’t make it back to the big leagues in 2019. Walker’s surgery was in April 2018, but a strained shoulder capsule limited him to one inning in 2019, which came in the final game of the season.

As one would expect from a rebuilding club, the Mariners have plenty of other young options to dream on, though the organization’s very best pitching prospects are likely a bit too far down the pipeline to factor into the 2020 season. The Mariners have selected a college right-hander with their top pick in each of the past three drafts — Logan Gilbert, George Kirby and now Emerson Hancock — and while that trio is unlikely to pitch in the Majors this year (Gilbert being the lone plausible exception), Dipoto did suggest that they and other top prospects could be on the taxi squad primarily for developmental purposes (link via Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times). Working out with other taxi squad members would give that promising group critical developmental reps in a year where no formal minor league season is expected to be played.

West Health Notes: A’s, D-backs, Mariners, Giants, Rangers

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Players who are at high risk of contracting the coronavirus have the right to opt out of participating this season, but they’d still receive full pay and service time. Athletics reliever Jake Diekman, who has ulcerative colitis and who had his colon removed in 2017, is one of those players. Diekman, however, informed Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle that he has no interest in opting out of the campaign – at least, not yet. “I’ve never thought once about opting out,” said the southpaw, though he added: “Say two or three guys on the team get it, we’ve all been around each other. I don’t know if I’d opt out in the middle of the season, but it definitely worries you.” Slusser also spoke with A’s utility player Chad Pinder, whose wife is expecting a baby in September, about the season. Pinder said, in part: “We have to do it right — or it just might not work. But there is a risk to this.”

  • An unnamed player on the Diamondbacks tested positive for the coronavirus in Arizona within the last month, general manager Mike Hazen said Wednesday (via Bob Nightengale of USA Today). That player was not using their facility, though, Hazen added. It’s unclear how his recovery has gone.
  • The Mariners have “had a few players test positive” for the virus, general manager Jerry Dipoto said Wednesday (via Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times). Fortunately, Dipoto went on to reveal that “they’re asymptomatic, and they feel great.”
  • More on the Mariners, who are uncertain whether outfielder Mitch Haniger will be ready for the resumption of spring training, according to GM Jerry Dipoto (via Divish). The past year has been an injury-filled nightmare for Haniger, who only played in 63 games in 2019 and then underwent two offseason surgeries – one a core procedure, the other a dissectomy. In better news for the Mariners, reliever Austin Adams – who underwent surgery on a torn ACL last fall – is set for camp. The 29-year-old Adams may have broken out for the Mariners last season with 32 innings of 3.94 ERA ball and a whopping 14.91 K/9.
  • Giants corner infielder Pablo Sandoval and lefties Tony Watson and Tyler Anderson will all be good to go for camp’s return, Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle tweets (1, 2). Catcher Aramis Garcia could be ready to come back in mid- to late August, meanwhile, and reliever Reyes Moronta may be set by then or in September. Sandoval had Tommy John surgery on his right elbow last September; Watson dealt with shoulder issues before spring training shut down; Anderson underwent a procedure on his left knee last summer; Garcia’s still recovering from February hip surgery; and Moronta’s on the mend from the right shoulder surgery he had in September.
  • Rangers left-hander Joely Rodriguez is back to throwing after suffering a lat strain in April, but he won’t be ready for the start of the season, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reports. Rodriguez should return at some point during the campaign, though. Texas lured Rodriguez back to the majors on a a two-year, $5.5MM contract in free agency after the former Phillie thrived in Japan from 2018-19.

Team Plans For Signing Undrafted Amateurs

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Now that MLB’s abbreviated 2020 draft is in the books, we can move along to the next phase of this one-off amateur signing season. Undrafted amateur players will now be free to sign with any team of their choosing, though they are capped with a signing bonus of $20K. Thus, the setup here presents a fascinating situation for amateur ballplayers and for us, those interested in parsing the ins-and-outs of roster-building. Here we have a unique situation where money will not necessarily be the driving factor for players choosing their first professional team. As players start to sign, we’ll likely hear stories that shed light on player perspective, which could paint an interesting picture of how young players view different franchises around baseball. For now, we’re starting to hear from teams themselves about spending limits for this class of amateur free agents. We’ll use this post to update those strategies as they trickle in…

  • The Giants have no apparent limits when it comes to signing amateur free agents now that the draft is completed. John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle provides a primer for this period of amateur free agents, writing, “The process starts at 6 a.m. Sunday, and the Giants will compete with the other 29 teams for the best available talent. But rather than outspending the others, all they can do is try to outsell them and offer appealing opportunities.” Given the Giants’ current position as a team looking to infuse as much young talent as possible, one would expect them to be aggressive in their attempts to add players from this pool. Obviously, more players than usual will be returning to college or committing to school as high school graduates, but given the volatility of the MLB draft under normal circumstances, it’s fair to expect a quality player or two to emerge from this pool of undrafted amateurs.
  • The Marlins are planning on limiting their pool of undrafted amateur free agents to 10 signings or less, per Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald (Twitter links). Along with their six drafted players, all of whom are expected to sign, the Marlins can expect an influx of 16 players max.
  • Similarly, the Mariners don’t expect to go hog wild with this year’s class of undrafted amateur. Per MLB.com’s Corey Brock, the Mariners’ Scouting Director Scott Hunter said the Mariners will only be signing between five and ten amateur free agents.
  • The Royals, meanwhile, are ready to shop, tweets Jeff Rosen of the Kansas City Star. The Royals could be big-time players in this sphere, as they’ve generated some goodwill recently because of their treatment of minor league players. Kansas City might not typically be a major free agent draw, but for amateur players, it’s a different story. The Royals have the opportunity and a long track record of highly valuing their own players. For players looking for their first professional contract, the Royals have a lot to offer. Among other things, they’re ready to be aggressive. GM Dayton Moore has the green light to “sign as many of those guys as we can,” per Lynn Worthy of the Kansas City Star.

Dipoto On Mariners’ Plans For Top Prospects

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The Mariners never expected to contend in 2020, but a lost or truncated season stands to impact the club’s developmental timeline. GM Jerry Dipoto discussed his organization’s approach, especially with regard to its top prospects, with Larry Stone of the Seattle Times.

Dipoto acknowledged the tightrope the team is likely to encounter with exciting young talents such as Logan Gilbert and Jarred Kelenic. On the one hand, the original plan was for such players to open the year “in developmental mode” in the upper minors. And while it went unsaid, it stands to reason that the Seattle front office isn’t anxious to burn up service time unnecessarily.

On the other hand, Dipoto is cognizant of the need to squeeze in as much development as possible. These guys need reps and seem unlikely to find them at Triple-A in 2020. Getting prospects the requisite playing experience “becomes a little more challenging when there may not be a league for them to go play in,” Dipoto explains.

“We are very committed to the idea that their development is more important to us than virtually anything else we’re going to do this year,” says Dipoto. “We’re still committed to that idea, and this will just be a delicate balance for not trying to rush them, but make sure they get the competition reps to the best of our ability.”

It sounds as if it’s still up in the air whether and for how long we might get a glimpse of these highly regarded youngsters. That’s all presuming there’s a season at all, of course.

The Seattle brass is clearly pessimistic about anything like a typical minor-league season. It’s not hard to see why, given the stumbling effort to get a MLB campaign underway. But Dipoto says there is some hope that many minor-leaguers will get some sort of competitive action. He says he’s “optimistic” that minor-league action of some kind will be possible later in the year.

More broadly, Dipoto says, the club is bullish on the organization’s outlook. The Mariners’ slate of future financial commitments isn’t onerous; most of it is promised to younger players. As a whole, the current MLB roster is quite youthful, and there’s hope that some new stars are just on the horizon. It’ll certainly be fun to watch if the M’s decide to throw some of that talent into the bigs in an offbeat 2020 campaign.

Denard Span Discusses His Decision To Walk Away

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Denard Span has played 11 seasons at the big league level, totaling 1359 games and 5956 plate appearances, but the former Twins, Nationals, Giants, Rays and Mariners outfielder confirmed to MLBTR this week that he’s suited up for the final time.

Denard Span | Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports

“I would say, in my heart, once I didn’t sign a contract going into the 2020 season, that was it for me,” said Span. Retirement, however, is a bittersweet step for the 36-year-old, who’d have preferred to walk away from the game on his own terms. Instead, changes to the free-agent landscape and the manner in which teams evaluate players left Span feeling conflicted as he sought a new team in the 2018-19 offseason.

“I’m a man of principles, and when those principles aren’t met, I can’t go along with it,” Span explained. “…I honestly recognize that I’m not the player that I was when I was in D.C. or when I was in Minnesota. But, I still know that I have value. I’m not a center fielder or premier player anymore, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help a ballclub win a championship or win games. I’m not the $12MM player anymore, but from what I did [in 2018], that doesn’t tell me I’m worth $1MM or worth $1.5MM or worth league minimum. I got an offer for league minimum. It was just unreal.”

Span indeed put together a solid campaign in 2018, tallying 501 plate appearances between the Rays and Mariners with a combined .261/.341/.419 batting line. He connected on 11 home runs, 22 doubles and seven triples while swiping nine bases in 13 tries. Both OPS+ and wRC+ agreed that his bat was 12 percent better than that of a league-average hitter. Through 137 games, Baseball-Reference pegged him at 2.1 wins above replacement — FanGraphs at 1.5.

“For me, how do you go from 500 at-bats, being a productive player — you look over the course of my career, I’ve never been a problem in the clubhouse, either — how do you equate that to $1.5MM or all the way down to league minimum?” Span asked rhetorically.

The timing of the offers was difficult on Span and his young family as well, ranging from late January through the first week of the regular season. Any offers received were of the “take it or leave it” variety, Span added, as opposed to a few years ago when there was more negotiation. Once Spring Training was underway, he finally received offers from multiple clubs at once — on minor league deals.

“It just was like, ’How did I get to this point where now I have to prove that I can play when I just had 500 at-bats last year?'” Span continued.

Span’s comments strike a similar tone to those recently expressed by former Reds second baseman Scooter Gennett. The 30-year-old Gennett, who didn’t sign a contract this winter, spoke to Doug Fernandes of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune last month about “not conforming” to what he “[doesn’t] think is right.” Gennett set a value on his skills and on the trade-off of being “220 days away from family,” ultimately opting not to compromise. Span viewed the decision similarly.

“I just couldn’t see myself at this point in my career giving in or compromising myself — especially where I’m at in my life, being a husband and a father,” said Span, who is married and has two children under three years old. “It’s already hard enough to be away from my family, and now they want me to play for less than what I humbly feel I deserve. I’m not saying I’m worth $10MM. I’m saying I’m worth more than what they offered me.”

Span and Gennett are hardly the only big leaguers frustrated by the changes to the free-agent landscape in recent years. We’re not far removed from a 2017-18 offseason that proved to be one of the most frigid in recent memory for free agents. The lack of activity on the middle and lower tiers of the free-agent market that winter helped to set the stage for much of the league/union tension that has negatively impacted the currently ongoing return-to-play talks and will certainly impact the next wave of collective bargaining in 2021.

While it’s true that the game’s top stars — particularly those still shy of 30 — have generally been able to secure considerable free-agent contracts, the 2017-18 and 2018-19 offseasons also featured an erosion of the “middle class” of free agents. (There’s a reason Adam Jones is preparing to play in Japan, after all.) Span himself noted that not long ago, veterans at the same point in their careers as he was following the 2018 season could even reasonably expect to find two-year deals. Rajai Davis, David DeJesus and Chris Young are among the numerous outfielders who signed two-year deals in the $10MM range from 2013-16.

In today’s game, comparable veterans like Kevin Pillar, Brock Holt and Asdrubal Cabrera have begun to settle for one-year pacts, and those who do find multi-year guarantees typically take a smaller salary. Wilmer Flores (two years, $6.25MM this offseason), Austin Jackson (two years, $6MM in 2018) and Howie Kendrick (two years, $7MM in 2018) are a few examples. With teams now suddenly experiencing unprecedented revenue losses, and with a likely aggressive wave of non-tenders on the horizon, it seems unlikely that the trend will change anytime soon. It’s eminently possible that other veterans will feel obligated to follow the same path as Span.

All told, Span will officially walk away from baseball with a lifetime .281/.347/.398 batting line, 71 home runs, 265 doubles, 72 triples, 185 stolen bases, 773 runs scored, 490 runs batted in and 28 wins above replacement. The 2002 first-round pick walked in 8.6 percent of his plate appearances, struck out at just a 12 percent clip and was a positive contributor on the bases and with the glove for the vast majority of his time in the big leagues. Between his draft bonus, his first extension with the Twins and his three-year deal with the Giants, Span earned more than $58MM as a player. His 2018 production suggests that he could likely have added to those totals, but Span will instead turn his full focus to his family, taking solace in the fact that he stuck to his convictions:

“At the end of the day, I want people to get that I didn’t play because of principles. Point blank.”

Each AL Team’s Top Recent Draft Class

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With the MLB draft scheduled for next week, let’s take a look at each American League team’s most successful draft class in recent memory. Using Baseball Reference’s draft tracker, we can sum the combined career bWAR of each player selected by each team in a given year. It’s a simple shorthand, not a perfect measure, but it’ll give some insight into which teams have really hit in certain years.

First, a quick note on the methodology. For simplicity, we’re limiting this search to the 2006-2015 classes. A player’s value is only included if he signed with the club, although he needn’t have actually played for his drafting team in the majors. (So, the 2008 Yankees don’t get credit for drafting but failing to sign Gerrit Cole, while the 2007 Red Sox do get credit for drafting and signing Anthony Rizzo, even though he was traded before ever playing an MLB game for Boston). Of course, a player drafted in 2006 has had more time to rack up value than one drafted in 2015, so we’ll note in each team’s capsule if a more recent class is on the verge of taking over from an older class. On to the results…

  • Angels: 2009 (109.3 bWAR) – Go figure. Picking one of the greatest players of all time is a heck of a way to kick off a draft class. But this 2009 class wasn’t just about Mike Trout, even if he’s accounted for about two-thirds of its cumulative value. That year, the Angels also selected Patrick Corbin, Randal Grichuk, Garrett Richards and Tyler Skaggs. Former MLBTR contributor Chuck Wassterstrom took a behind-the-scenes look at this class a few years ago.
  • Astros: 2009 (53.2 bWAR) – Not a single one of the Astros’ top five rounders in 2009 reached the majors. The late rounds, though, were a smashing success with J.D. Martinez (20th), Dallas Keuchel (7th) and Kiké Hernández (6th) accounting for the class’ value. Of course, Martinez did his damage elsewhere after the Astros released him.
  • A’s: 2012 (37.7 bWAR) – The A’s 2012 class produced seven big leaguers, most notably Matt Olson. He leads a group that also included Addison Russell and Max Muncy, who have played most or all of their MLB careers elsewhere.
  • Blue Jays: 2009 (39.2 bWAR) – They won’t get credit for selecting James Paxton in supplemental round one here, but Yan Gomes was a nice find in the tenth round, though he would play only briefly in Toronto before being dealt to Cleveland. Outside of Gomes, the Blue Jays found a few nice role players, including Jake Marisnick, Aaron Loup, Ryan Goins, and others.
  • Indians: 2011 (38.7 bWAR) – Selecting Francisco Lindor eighth overall in 2011 was a key to Cleveland’s 2016 AL pennant. So too was then-closer Cody Allen, whom they grabbed in the 23rd round. With Lindor mid-prime, the class’ value should just continue to grow.
  • Mariners: 2006 (40.2 bWAR) – Doug Fister and Chris Tillman went on to become mid-rotation starters for a time (Fister arguably even a bit more than that), albeit with other clubs. Fifth overall pick Brandon Morrow disappointed as a starter but had a late-career renaissance as a quality reliever before various injuries derailed him.
  • Orioles: 2007 (43.2 bWAR) – Although only four players from this class would wind up making the Majors, the combination of Jake Arrieta and Matt Wieters makes the 2007 draft a pretty solid one for the O’s. While Wieters, the fifth overall pick, maybe didn’t turn out to be the franchise cornerstone he was hailed to be, he has nonetheless had a nice career. Arrieta had a slow start in Baltimore, but would of course earn a Cy Young with the Cubs. It’s worth noting that this spot will be taken by the 2010 class before too long, almost entirely on the back of Manny Machado.
  • Rangers: 2008 (33.3 bWAR) – Despite garnering only a 25th-round selection, Tanner Roark has turned out to be the most productive player in this class. First-round choice Justin Smoak deserves a mention too, though his career didn’t really take off until he’d been traded out of Texas. The 2011 class, headed by Kyle Hendricks, is not far behind and could claim this title in the near future.
  • Rays: 2006 (81.5 bWAR) – Franchise legend Evan Longoria does a lot of the heavy lifting for this class, having amassed 56 total WAR by age 34. Even so, there are some other quality players here: Desmond Jennings and Alex Cobb are the other notables, with Jennings carving out a solid MLB career as a tenth-round pick.
  • Red Sox: 2011 (70.2 bWAR) – This is far and away the best Sox draft class in recent memory, and it shouldn’t surprise anyone. Mookie Betts, one of the finest players in baseball, established himself as Boston’s franchise player after he was selected in the fifth round. Even outside of Betts, this class yielded a few key members of the Red Sox 2018 World Series team, with Jackie Bradley Jr. and relief ace Matt Barnes also coming out of that draft.
  • Royals: 2007 (47.1 bWAR) – Speaking of drafting World Series contributors, the Royals in 2007 added both Mike Moustakas and Greg Holland, both of whom turned out to be central in the Royals’ playoff runs in 2014 and 2015. And that’s before mentioning third-rounder Danny Duffy, who’s still with Kansas City and inked a nice extension prior to 2017.
  • Tigers: 2007 (20.6 bWAR) – With just 20.6 WAR, the Tigers’ best draft in recent memory doesn’t compare favorably to the rest of the AL, and that partly illuminates the franchise’s current standing in baseball. The notable player from the 2007 class is Rick Porcello, who had some nice years to begin his career with the Tigers and would later win a Cy Young. Maybe they get bonus points for discovering high-schooler D.J. LeMahieu, who wouldn’t sign with the team, in round 41?
  • Twins: 2009 (32.4 bWAR) – Between Kyle Gibson and Brian Dozier, the Twins drafted a pair of staples on the Minnesota teams of the mid-2010s. But with both playing elsewhere now, keep an eye on the 2012 draft class, which features a trio of young centerpieces for a new era of Twins baseball: Byron Buxton, Jose Berrios, and Taylor Rogers are up-and-comers who could rack up a lot of value as they enter their primes.
  • White Sox: 2010 (55.3 bWAR) – Chris Sale carries the 2010 class for the South Siders, by far the best draftee in an otherwise mediocre string of years for Chicago. That said, 2010 yielded a couple of other role players for the White Sox, with Addison Reed, Jake Petricka, and Tyler Saladino all making nice MLB contributions.
  • Yankees: 2006 (69.4 bWAR) – Whereas many teams’ success in a given year is determined by one standout player, the Yankees’ installment on this list displays a surprising breadth of quality players, without a single superstar. Evidently, the 2006 Yankees cornered the market on MLB relievers: Ian Kennedy, David Robertson, Dellin Betances, Mark Melancon, and Joba Chamberlain are the five most productive players from the Bombers’ draft that year (granted, Kennedy didn’t transition to the bullpen until last year).

AL Draft Notes: Mariners, Yankees, Rays

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With this year’s iteration of the MLB Draft, which will begin on Wednesday, comprising just five rounds instead of the usual 40, there’s some thinking that teams will prioritize college players, about whom more is known and who tend to come with more certainty. And while we won’t know for certain until it all plays out next week, here’s the latest on several AL teams’ thinking as the truncated draft approaches.

  • The Mariners are said to be once again targeting collegiate pitchers, writes Greg Johns of MLB.com. Jerry Dipoto’s club holds the sixth overall selection, and has six total picks in the draft. They’ve been linked to the likes of Emerson Hancock, and to a lesser degree Max Meyer and Reid Detmers—all college hurlers. But if infielder Nick Gonzales, widely regarded as one of the premier talents in this year’s draft class, falls out of the top five, Dipoto may deviate from that preference and nab the New Mexico State product. If the M’s do indeed opt for a college pitcher in round one, it would represent a continuation of the strategy the Seattle front office has employed in the previous two drafts: in 2018, the Mariners chose Stetson’s Logan Gilbert at no. 14; last year, they grabbed George Kirby of Elon at no. 20.
  • Bryan Hoch of MLB.com is hearing that the Yankees could go after a position player with their first pick and pitchers in the later rounds. Due to the Gerrit Cole signing, the Bronx Bombers forfeited their second- and fifth-round selections, meaning that they’ll only make three selections on draft day. Per Hoch, they’ve been connected to shortstops Nick Loftin, Ed Howard, and Carson Tucker as candidates for the 28th-overall draft choice. Loftin is a Baylor product, while Howard and Tucker both come from the high school ranks. In Anthony Volpe and Anthony Seigler, Brian Cashman and company have targeted high school position players in the first round of consecutive drafts.
  • The Rays have been one of the better (or perhaps, luckier) teams when it comes to finding Major League talent in the late rounds of the draft, but of course they won’t have much opportunity to continue that trend this year, given that they’ll only have five rounds (six selections) to add talent to their already-loaded farm system. As Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times writes, the consequences of the shortened format might be magnified for the tight-budget Rays, who are especially dependent on the draft—even the later rounds—for rounding out the organization. One example of that is 31st-round selection Kevin Kiermaier, whom MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk covered earlier today. All that said, Topkin believes the Rays likely won’t alter their philosophy of hunting for the players with the best overall chance of impacting the MLB club, with little regard for position or age.

Mariners Release Manny Banuelos

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The Mariners recently released left-hander Manny Banuelos, according to the Pacific Coast League transactions page. Banuelos only spent a few months with the Mariners, who signed him to a minors pact near the beginning of February.

Now 29 years old, Banuelos ranked as one of the sport’s premier pitching prospects while part of the Yankees’ farm system. Banuelos topped out as Baseball America’s 29th-best farmhand in 2012, though injuries – including Tommy John surgery – have played a part in preventing him from realizing his potential.

Although his career hasn’t turned out as hoped so far, Banuelos is at least coming off a year in which he racked up a solid amount of innings as a member of the White Sox. He totaled 50 2/3 frames over 16 appearances (eight starts), though Banuelos could only notch a 6.93 ERA/6.57 FIP with 7.82 K/9 and 5.86 BB/9. It was his first major league action since a 26 1/3-inning run with the Braves in 2015, when he pitched to a 5.13 ERA. But Banuelos has been far better in Triple-A, as his 3.98 ERA with 8.4 K/9 against 4.4 BB/9 over 396 frames demonstrates.

Three Teams Played Musical Chairs With First Basemen…And Five Teams Came Away Winners

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Last week, I looked at Cole Sulser’s prospects of making an impact in the Baltimore Orioles bullpen. Sulser found his way to Baltimore via Tampa Bay after being included in a three-way swap of more prominent players. Today, let’s take a look at those players. 

To review: in December of 2018, the Indians, Mariners, and Rays engaged in a three-way deal that shuffled around their first basemen. In this rare three-way challenge trade, each team came away with (at least one) major-league first baseman. The Rays got Yandy Diaz, the Mariners Edwin Encarnacion, while the Indians snagged a pair of first basemen in the deal: Jake Bauers and Carlos Santana. 

There were auxiliary pieces that fit less cleanly into our first basemen carousel. The Rays picked up Sulser from Cleveland, while Tampa also sent $5MM to the Mariners. Seattle paid that money forward, sending a total of $6MM to the Indians. Coming back to Seattle was the Indians’ Round B selection in the draft. The Mariners ended up selecting right-handed pitcher Isaiah Campbell out of Arkansas with the #76 pick in the draft. Those pieces aside, let’s check in on how each team is feeling about their end of this whirlwind deal one season after the fact.

Indians

This move – and much of their offseason last winter – was largely about shuffling money around – but not wholly so. The Indians took back Santana, who had only recently been sent to Seattle after playing one season in Philadelphia. Santana made $20.3MM in 2019, but his contract was offset by sending out Encarnacion, who was owed $21.7MM in 2019 with a $5MM buyout for 2020. The difference in their salaries, plus the money acquired from Seattle netted the Indians close to $7.5MM in 2019, though they took on more long-term money in Santana.

On the field, this deal basically amounts to two exchanges for the Indians: Santana over Encarnacion in terms of big-money players, and Bauers over Diaz for cost-controlled assets. As for the first exchange, the Indians have to count this as a win. After one so-so year with the Phillies, Santana returned to form in a big way with the Indians. All aspects of Santana’s game came together in 2019. He hit .281/.397/.515 on the year with 34 home runs and 110 RBIs. He turned in his typically strong BB-K numbers, posting identical walk and strikeout rates of 15.7% (slight improvements on his career norms in both departments). His isolated power (.234 ISO) was the second-highest mark of his career, while the .397 OBP was a new career-high for a full season. Santana’s season totaled 4.6rWAR/4.4 fWAR, good for 135 wRC+, and he’ll be back in their lineup for 2020.

Bauers, on the other hand, is a work in progress. He brings an added level of versatility, appearing in 31 games at first and 53 games in left, but he’ll need to improve at the plate to put that value to work. Bauers hit just .226/.312/.371 across 423 plate appearances in his first season with the Indians. His walk rate dropped to 10.6% and with a power mark of just .145 ISO. That’s not enough pop from a first baseman/left fielder. He finished with below-average marks of 78 wRC+ and -0.4 fWAR. Still, all hope is not lost for Bauers. A career-low .290 BABIP might point to some positive regression in the future, and he doesn’t even turn 25-years-old until October.

Mariners

The Mariners’ biggest get here was the draft pick. GM Jerry Dipoto continued his rebuild, and ultimately, the swap of sluggers was an avenue to add another draft pick. After taking on Santana a week prior, the Mariners shed long-term money by swapping in Encarnacion, whom they eventually flipped to the Yankees.

While with the Mariners, Encarnacion was about as good as expected, slashing .241/.356/.531 with 21 home runs in 65 games. With the rebuild in full swing, EE was never expected to spend a full season in Seattle. Given his start to the year, the Mariners’ return for the DH was a little underwhelming, but the market for teams in need of a designated hitter was limited. Still, Trader Jerry added right-hander Juan Then from the Yankees. Fangraphs ranks Then as the Mariners’ #13-ranked prospect after finishing the season in A-ball. Campbell, selected with the acquired draft choice, comes in at #16.

The Yankees and Mariners essentially split the remaining money owed Encarnacion at the time, so the M’s did see some financial benefit as well. It’s often difficult to track the wheeling and dealing done by Dipoto, but we can give it a go here. To do so, we have to go back to the deal that sent Santana from the Phillies to Seattle. Dipoto sent Jean Segura, Juan Nicasio, and James Pazos to Philly for Santana and J.P. Crawford. In sum, he started with Segura, Nicasio, and Pazos, and the Mariners ended up with Crawford, Then, and Campbell, along with some financial saving both in the short-and-long-term.

Rays

It was surprising to see the Rays move Jake Bauers at the time of this deal, but they’re no stranger to dealing from a young core. The Rays picked up Sulser and Diaz for Bauers in this trade, while also sending $5MM to the Mariners. Considering Sulser was eventually lost on waivers to the Orioles (though he did give them 7 scoreless innings in 2019), the move essentially amounts to the Rays paying $5MM to swap in Diaz for Bauers. At the time of the deal, Bauers was seen as an up-and-comer, while Diaz was a little-known 27-year-old utility player with little-to-no boom in his boomstick. As has often been the case of late with Rays’ trades, at a cursory glance, the Rays were trading away controllable youth for a role player.

But where the Rays are concerned, it’s often worth delving a little further. Diaz quickly became known for his above-average exit velocities. And while Diaz was a little older and without the prospect pedigree of Bauers, he came with similar team control, more versatility given his ability to line up at the hot corner, and his biceps have a cult following all their own.

Injuries unfortunately limited Diaz’s production in 2019, but when he was on the field, he was dynamite. While posting a line of .267/.340/.476 across 79 games, Diaz was coming into his own as a hitter with a 116 wRC+. Diaz’s minor league career to this point was a testament to his ability to get on base, limit strikeouts, and make hard contact, but a groundball-heavy approach limited his power.

But it was a different story in Tampa. Diaz produced a career-best .208 ISO to go with a 91.7 mph exit velocity that put him in the top 8% of the league, per Statcast. His hard-hit percentage continues to be well above average, and a small improvement in launch angle and a large jump in barrels led to Diaz smashing 14 home runs in 79 games after hitting just 1 in 88 big league games with the Indians.

Not only that, but Diaz returned from the injured list in time for the playoffs, leading off the wild card game with a solo shot off Sean Manaea. Diaz went deep his second time up as well, at which point the Rays had more than enough to get past the A’s. It was a monster performance from Diaz in the biggest game of the year up to that point. (Things didn’t go quite so well for Diaz in Houston, as he went 0 for 9 with four strikeouts in the ALDS.) The Rays have to feel pretty good about where they stand with Diaz moving forward, as he should continue to be a cheap source of offense for the next couple of seasons.

For that matter, all three teams have to feel pretty good about this deal, as they each accomplished their goal. If Bauers has a better showing in 2020 and the Mariners’ prospects come to fruition, there will ultimately be very little not to like about this three-way deal. Include the Orioles for nabbing Sulser and the Yankees for getting a half a season of Encarnacion, and it could be argued that five teams actually came away winners from this three-way swap of first baseman.

Mariners Release More Than 50 Minor Leaguers

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May 29: Heyman now tweets that Gonzalez is not among the Mariners players who have been released. The Score’s Robert Murray adds, though, that the Seattle organization has released more than 50 minor league players.

May 28: The Mariners have released veteran outfielder Carlos Gonzalez, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman tweets. As a reminder, Major League transactions are still frozen, although we recently verified that minor league cuts are still permissible. Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times had previously reported that the Mariners were releasing more than 30 minor league players. Divish adds that minor leaguers who remain with the Mariners will continue to receive the current $400 weekly stipend through the end of the 2020 season. Teams had previously only agreed to pay minor leaguers through May, and some have already cut their pay entirely or extended the stipend but only through the end of June.

Teams didn’t make many of their usual cuts late in Spring Training, so several of today’s releases might’ve already been cut lose already under normal circumstances anyhow. That’s certainly the case for the veteran Gonzalez, who was unlikely to make the club and had an April 1 opt-out date in his minor league deal. As Divish further points out, large-scale minor league releases are common prior to the amateur draft. This year’s five-round draft is vastly shorter than a standard 40-round draft, but other clubs (Orioles, White Sox) have begun to make similar waves of releases. With minor league contraction potentially on the horizon and uncertainty surrounding a minor league season being played at all in 2020, additional cuts seem likely throughout the league.

Turning to Gonzalez, the lone name known at this point, he was always a bit of a tough fit on a rebuilding Mariners club that was trying to give as many plate appearances as possible to young talent. Back in Spring Training, Divish suggested that the CarGo signing was something of a courtesy to a respected veteran — offering him a chance to pick up some spring at-bats. Surely in the event of multiple injuries, the depth would’ve become more useful for the M’s, but the April 1 opt-out in his deal was present to allow him to seek other opportunities if and when he found himself a ways down the depth chart.

Gonzalez, 34, went 6-for-22 with a double, three walks and five strikeouts in 25 spring plate appearances with Seattle. The three-time All-Star and two-time Silver Slugger is coming off a brutal season split between the Indians and the Cubs — one in which he mustered only a .200/.289/.283 batting line in 166 plate appearances. He posted a respectable .276/.329/.467 slash (99 OPS+, 97 wRC+) with the Rockies a year prior, but CarGo hasn’t been a decidedly above-average hitter since 2016, when he batted .298/.350/.505 with Colorado.

While he’s no longer in the prime of his career, Gonzalez isn’t so far past that point that a resurgence is unforeseeable. And with the likely advent of the universal designated hitter for at least the 2020 season, perhaps some NL clubs with lackluster options will have interest in taking a flier on a player who batted .296/.353/.535 with an average of 26 homers per season during his peak from 2010-16.

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