Jerry Dipoto, Jarred Kelenic Respond To Kevin Mather Controversy
The Mariners are in damage-control mode following CEO Kevin Mather’s resignation in the wake of a bizarre video interview that brought considerable backlash on the organization. General manager Jerry Dipoto and manager Scott Servais called the entire situation “embarrassing” when meeting with the Seattle media this week (link via The Athletic’s Corey Brock). Dipoto sought to distance the organization from Mather’s comments, repeatedly emphasizing that Mather was just one individual and that his views were not shared throughout the organization.
Mather, of course, not only all but admitted to service-time manipulation of the organization’s top prospects but also called Marco Gonzales “boring,” said Kyle Seager was “overpaid” and in his last season as a Mariner — it’s not clear whether Seager expected to return after the conclusion of his current contract — and made disparaging comments about being required to pay translators for Japanese players while also slamming top prospect Julio Rodriguez‘s English-speaking skills in unprompted fashion (among many other bizarre and at-times troubling comments).
Mather indicated within his interview that top outfield prospect Jarred Kelenic rejected a long-term contract offer, and he only narrowly stopped short of plainly stating the manner in which they planned to delay his MLB debut to gain an extra year of team control. Mather stated that Kelenic would not be on the Opening Day roster, regardless of spring performance, but that he’d be in the Majors by the end of April. It’s true that most teams do this, but public admission of this nature is fuel for a grievance from the MLBPA and only further fans the flames in the looming collective bargaining talks.
Unsurprisingly, Mather’s comments didn’t sit well with Kelenic’s camp. Agent Brodie Scoffield and Kelenic himself spoke to USA Today’s Bob Nightengale yesterday, and both parties indicated that Kelenic would’ve been in the Majors last year had he been willing to sign the extension offer put forth by the Mariners prior to the 2020 season.
Scoffield told Nightengale it was “made crystal clear to Jarred” that the decision to keep him at the Mariners’ alternate training site for the 2020 season was driven by service time. “There’s no question that if he signed that contract, he would have been in the big leagues,” said Scoffield. Kelenic himself agreed, saying it was the “God’s honest truth” that fact was communicated to him multiple times. “It got old,” said Kelenic.
While Dipoto clearly wanted to distance himself from as much of Mather’s commentary as possible, he pushed back on the notion that the Mariners have set out to deliberately game the service-time mechanism.
“I’m not sure how you construe service-time manipulation with a 21-year-old who has played 20 games above A ball and has not yet achieved 800 plate appearances as a professional player,” said the GM. That’s a rather dubious assertion, however. First and foremost, using games played is a clearly flawed benchmark following a year in which zero minor league games took place. Secondly, Mather’s blunt acknowledgment that Kelenic would not open the year with the Mariners but would be up in late April only further underscores the service-time element of the situation.
Despite all the negative attention surrounding the situation and his palpable frustration, Kelenic emphasized to Nightengale that he is wholly committed to the Mariners organization. Citing a love of the fans, the city of Seattle and his teammates, Kelenic said: “If anything, I’m more motivated to bring a World Series championship to Seattle.”
It should also be stressed that the door on a potential extension with the Mariners isn’t closed as a result of this public unpleasantness. Scoffield tells MLBTR that he and Kelenic would still listen to new proposals from the Mariners, should they want to put together another offer. Whether a middle ground can ultimately be reached can’t be known at this time, but at the very least Mariners fans should be heartened that the relationship by no means appears fractured.
Specifics of the Mariners’ original proposal aren’t known, but not all contracts for pre-MLB players are created equal. Kelenic’s teammate, Evan White, inked a six-year, $24MM deal before making his debut — a very similar pact to the one signed by Philadelphia’s Scott Kingery. White Sox left fielder Eloy Jimenez and center fielder Luis Robert, on the other hand, signed six-year pacts worth $43MM and $50MM, respectively, before making their own debuts.
The question for the Mariners now is whether they’ll try for a new deal, stay the course by keeping Kelenic in Triple-A to open the season, or bite the bullet and carry him on the Opening Day roster even without a long-term deal in place. Calling him to the Majors shortly after his service time has been sufficiently held down would be, after all of this attention, one of the more brazen examples of service manipulation in recent memory. Kelenic already spoke to Nightengale of how the now-former CEO’s comments “widened the gap” between the front office and the locker room, adding that Dipoto’s attempt to smooth things over with the players was “strange” and not particularly well-received.
It’s an ugly situation all-around. However, while Gonzales acknowledged to Brock that Mather’s words were “hurtful and personal” for a lot of the clubhouse, himself included, there could in some ways have a unifying effect on the clubhouse. “Sometimes common goals can unite you,” said Gonzales. “…Sometimes a common enemy can do the same, if not greater.”
Minor MLB Transactions: 2/23/21
Tuesday’s minor moves from around baseball…
- The Braves have agreed to a minor league contract with outfielder Travis Snider, Jon Heyman of MLB Network tweets. The former Blue Jay will now reunite with Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos, who was the GM in Toronto during part of Snider’s tenure there. Snider was a star prospect early in his Jays tenure but hasn’t lived up to the hype in the majors. The 33-year-old owns a .244/.311/.399 line with 54 home runs in 1,971 plate appearances, and he hasn’t appeared in the bigs since he split 2015 between Pittsburgh and Baltimore.
- The Mariners announced that they have outrighted Robert Dugger to Triple-A. The team designated the right-hander for assignment last week, which came a little over two months after it claimed him off waivers from the Marlins in December. Dugger, 25, pitched to a 7.40 ERA with a similarly poor 4.2 K-BB percentage in 45 innings as a Marlin from 2019-20. He’ll remain with the M’s as depth for at least the time being.
Mariners CEO Kevin Mather Resigns
FEB. 22, 3:02pm: Mather has resigned, Divish was among those to tweet. As part of a statement regarding Mather’s resignation, Mariners chairman John Stanton said: “There is no excuse for what was said, and I won’t try to make one. I offer my sincere apology on behalf of the club and my partners to our players and fans. We must be, and do, better. We have a lot of work to do to make amends.” Stanton added that he’ll serve as acting president/CEO until the team finds a permanent replacement for Mather.
2:17pm: The MLB Players Association has released a statement about Mather: “The Club’s video presentation is a highly disturbing yet critically important window into how Players are genuinely viewed by management. Not just because of what was said, but also because it represents an unfiltered look into Club thinking. It is offensive, and it is not surprising that fans and others around the game are offended as well. Players remain committed to confronting these issues at the bargaining table and elsewhere.”
FEB. 21, 10:20PM: Mather issued a public apology, stating “I want to apologize to every member of the Seattle Mariners organization, especially our players and to our fans. There is no excuse for my behavior, and I take full responsibility for my terrible lapse in judgement. My comments were my own. They do not reflect the views and strategy of the Mariners baseball leadership who are responsible for decisions about the development and status of the players at all levels of the organization.
“I’ve been on the phone most of the day today apologizing to the many people I have insulted, hurt, or disappointed in speaking at a recent online event. I am committed to make amends for the things I said that were personally hurtful and I will do whatever it takes to repair the damage I have caused to the Seattle Mariners organization.”
7:25PM: In a video speech given to the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club on February 5, Mariners president/CEO Kevin Mather discussed a number of topics surrounding his team and the upcoming season at large. The speech was posted to YouTube earlier today and later removed, though not before several outlets (including Grant Bronsdon and Kate Preusser of the Lookout Landing blog and Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times) took note of several eyebrow-raising statements made by the Seattle executive.
Speaking with an unusual (and rather shocking) amount of openness, Mather made multiple comments that are sure to gain the attention of Mariners fans, players, and the players’ union. The most problematic remarks concerned how star prospect Julio Rodriguez and former pitcher Hisashi Iwakuma reportedly have or had difficulties speaking English. Asked to tell attendees about Rodriguez, Mather began with, “Julio Rodríguez has got a personality bigger than all of you combined. He is loud, his English is not tremendous.” Rodriguez has already responded to Mather’s comments with a pair of pointed tweets.
In response to a separate question, Mather went on a tangent about Iwakuma, saying:
“For instance, we just re-hired Iwakuma, he was a pitcher with us for a number of years. Wonderful human being, his English was terrible. He wanted to get back into the game, he came to us, we quite frankly want him as our Asian scout, interpreter, what’s going on with the Japanese league. He’s coming to spring training. And I’m going to say, I’m tired of paying his interpreter. When he was a player, we’d pay Iwakuma X, but we’d also have to pay $75,000 a year to have an interpreter with him. His English suddenly got better, his English got better when we told him that!”
While Mather also praised Rodriguez, Iwakuma, and other players during the speech, his overall breakdown of Seattle’s roster carried more than a few awkward moments. For instance, Mather continually referred to catcher Luis Torrens as “Luis Torres,” and he described longtime third baseman Kyle Seager as “probably overpaid” while also citing Seager’s clubhouse leadership.
It’s quite possible league officials may also have a few words with Mather considering how he discussed such topics as prospect service time, noting that the Mariners didn’t intend to promote any of the top prospects working out at their alternate training camp last summer.
“There was no chance you were going to see these young players at T-Mobile Park,” Mather said. “We weren’t going to put them on the 40-man roster, we weren’t going to start the service time clock. There were all kinds of reasons that, if we had an injury problem or COVID outbreak, you might’ve seen my big tummy out there in left field. You would not have seen our prospects playing in T-Mobile Park.”
It isn’t any surprise that the Mariners or any other team are looking to gain as much extra team control as possible over their young players, with this tactic most often manifesting itself in a prospect’s debut being delayed just long enough so the club can gain an extra year of control over the player, or delay their chances of reaching Super Two eligibility (and another year of arbitration). Front office executives couch these decisions under a nebulous guise of saying that a prospect needs more seasoning in one aspect or another of his game, with the prospect suddenly being ready as soon as the service time threshold has been passed. The MLBPA was already expected to pursue ways of addressing this loophole during the upcoming collective bargaining agreement negotiations, and Mather’s comments figure to be the union’s clearest evidence yet that teams are engaging in service-time machinations.
This coming spring, Mather implied that both star outfield prospect Jarred Kelenic and pitching prospect Logan Gilbert would have their debuts delayed. “We would like [Kelenic] to get a few more at-bats in the minor leagues,” Mather said. “Probably Triple-A Tacoma for a month, and then he will likely be in left field at T-Mobile Park for the next six or seven years.” As for Gilbert, “you won’t see him on April 1st, but by mid-April” he will be on Seattle’s active roster.
Kelenic was offered a contract extension of six years in length, Mather said, plus multiple years of club options. This has been the standard model for most teams when making long-term deals with players who have yet to debut in the big leagues, and the Mariners reached such a deal themselves with Evan White back in November 2019.
Mather didn’t seem to have any hard feelings about Kelenic’s decision to reject the offer, and he also gave credit to White for taking an extension, saying the first baseman “took a lot of heat for signing that deal, the union really pushed back and said, ‘don’t do it.’ ” Mather added that the Mariners will continue to offer similar extensions “to…three or four more players…over the next two years,” saying “we’re eager to sign these players up [and] we’re willing to take that risk. Some we’ll win on, some we’ll lose on.”
Mather also made some candid comments about Seattle’s pursuit of free agent pitching, as his speech took place before the team signed James Paxton. The CEO mentioned that the Mariners were in talks with both Paxton and Taijuan Walker, noting that Walker “thinks he’s going to get a three-year deal. I don’t think he’s going to get a three-year deal.” As it turned out, Walker essentially did get a three-year contract from the Mets in the form of a two-year pact with a player option for 2023 that will pay Walker at least $20MM in guaranteed money and potentially as much as $25.5MM.
Speaking of the free agent market in general, Mather said that Major League Baseball “lost $2.9 billion last year, and we have taken the position that there are 180 free agents still out there on February 5 unsigned, and sooner or later, these players are going to turn their hat over and come with hat in hand, looking for a contract.”
In terms of the season itself, Mather said he was “embarrassed” that Spring Training was beginning as scheduled, and that the league and players couldn’t come to an agreement on delaying both spring camp and the season itself by a month. “There is a high level of distrust between the union and the management currently, and I’m very worried about what’s coming in the future,” Mather said. The Mariners are hoping to have a “small” number of fans in attendance to begin the season and then gradually increase to nearer to full capacity by September, but Mather said that the situation will all depend on local health officials and the state of the pandemic.
Mariners Likely Done Adding Major League Pieces
The Mariners sought multiyear accords with a couple of free agents this winter, including Kolten Wong and Tommy La Stella, per Daniel Kramer of MLB.com. The Mariners were clear in their attempt to find a left-handed bat to split time with Dylan Moore at second base. Ideally, that player could stick his cleat in the grass at times as well, specifically as an option in left field.
Though the Mariners came up empty, there were more than a few free agents who fit that mold. Ha-Seong Kim, Marwin Gonzalez, Jonathan Villar, Jurickson Profar, Brad Miller, Jace Peterson, Ehire Adrianza, Brock Holt, and Dee Strange-Gordon signed elsewhere at a variety of different price points. It’s a little hard to fathom that the Mariners couldn’t find a way to add someone from that group. Presumably, those names either didn’t fit GM Jerry Dipoto’s vision or priced themselves beyond the Mariners’ comfort zone. Mike Freeman and Eric Sogard are two options whom the Mariners could turn to, should they want to bolster their depth. They are prepared to enter camp with the roster as-is, however.
Per Kramer, Dipoto more-or-less put a bow on their winter work, saying, “We had a series of targets, each of which we thought were ideal fits. We put them in an order that we thought best represented the way we saw that player, and then we tried to go out and get them. In all of those cases, we offered multiyear contracts that seemed to fit what we were trying to do not just for 2021, but for 2022 and potentially beyond that. We were aggressive in that market. We just failed to bring in the offensive piece we were looking to add.”
Without that additional piece, the Mariners will roll with Moore at second and Shed Long filling that versatile bench role. Sam Haggerty and Donovan Walton will push him for playing time in spring training, while Taylor Trammell and Jake Fraley will get take some spring at-bats in left. Designated hitter Ty France could also see time at second.
In further Mariners news, Logan Gilbert will likely start the season in Triple-A. While he was previously going to have an opportunity to contend for a spot in their six-man rotation, the James Paxton signing will allow the Mariners to protect his innings and bring him along slowly.
This follows a trend for the Mariners’ roster-building this winter, as they’ve tried to build out their depth to allow for maximum flexibility in how they promote and push their young players. Mission accomplished: if anything, the Mariners are light on veteran depth at the moment on the position player side. As is, they can allot most of the playing time this spring to youngsters, including top prospects Jarred Kelenic and Julio Rodriguez – both of whom are likely to start the season in the minors.
The Mariners CBT payroll sits at $102MM, per Roster Resource, with their actual payroll even slimmer at $85MM. That leaves them roughly $5MM shy from 2020 payroll level. This winter, they handed out four Major League deals to free agent pitchers: Paxton, Ken Giles, Keynan Middleton, and Chris Flexen. Giles and Flexen received two-year pacts, though Giles will miss this upcoming season. The Mariners have not signed a position player to a Major League contract.
Mariners Designate Robert Dugger For Assignment
The Mariners announced that they’ve designated right-hander Robert Dugger for assignment in order to open a spot on the roster for righty Ken Giles, whose two-year contract is now official.
Dugger, 25, was an 18th-round pick of the Mariners back in 2016 who was traded to the Marlins in the deal that brought Dee Strange-Gordon to Seattle. Dugger made his big league debut in Miami but didn’t find much success in parts of two seasons there, posting a 7.40 ERA with a 13.7 percent strikeout rate and 9.4 percent walk rate in 45 innings. Dugger’s struggles have persisted in Triple-A, although he had a solid track record up through the Double-A level, where he owns a 3.60 ERA with solid strikeout and walk numbers through 180 innings of work.
Seattle claimed Dugger back from the Marlins in early December when Miami designated him for assignment, and the Mariners will now have a week to trade him or pass him through outright waivers. If he goes unclaimed, Dugger would remain with the organization (without the 40-man spot) and likely return to big league camp as a non-roster invitee.
The pair of moves leaves Seattle’s 40-man roster at capacity, although since Giles is recovering from Tommy John surgery, he could be placed on the 60-day injured list to open a spot if the Mariners make another late addition.
Mariners Sign Ken Giles
FEB. 18: It’s a two-year, $7MM guarantee, Jon Heyman of MLB Network reports. Giles will earn a $1MM salary in 2021 and a $5MM salary in 2022. There’s also a $9.5MM option or a $500K buyout for 2023. Additionally, the contract features a $500K signing bonus.
FEB. 11: The Mariners are in agreement on a two-year contract with free-agent reliever Ken Giles, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. Shannon Drayer of ESPN 710 first reported the news. Giles is a client of Rowley Sports Management.
Because he underwent Tommy John surgery as a member of the Blue Jays on Oct. 1, Giles will not be able to help the Mariners in 2021. However, if his recovery goes well, Giles’ history suggests he will emerge as a valuable part of the Mariners’ bullpen the next season. Giles, after all, has logged a 2.74 ERA/2.57 SIERA with well-above-average strikeout and walk rates (33.3 and 7.7 percent, respectively) across a combined 351 innings with the Phillies, Astros and Jays. The 30-year-old right-hander has also converted 115 of 130 save attempts and averaged better than 97 mph on his fastball.
Giles’ elbow issues limited him to 3 2/3 frames last year, but it would be difficult to find many relievers who were harder to face in 2019. That season, Giles threw 53 innings of 1.87 ERA/2.49 SIERA ball and ended up sixth among bullpen arms in K-BB percentage (31.7).
Mariners Sign James Paxton
Feb. 18: The Mariners have formally announced their one-year deal with Paxton. Right-hander Andres Munoz, who is recovering from Tommy John surgery, was placed on the 60-day IL to open a roster spot.
Feb. 13: The Seattle Mariners have an agreement in place with James Paxton, per Chad Dey of Sportsnet650 (via Twitter). The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal confirms the deal. Paxton will make $8.5MM on a one-year deal with bonuses upping the potential value to $10MM, per ESPN’s Jeff Passan (via Twitter). “Big Maple” will earn an additional $750K with 10 games and $750K at 20 games, adds MLB Network’s Jon Heyman. Paxton is represented by the Boras Corporation.
By signing for just one season, Paxton will have the opportunity to prove his good health and return to the open market. It’s no small thing that he’ll get to do so in an environment where he’s comfortable, having made T-Mobile Park his home from 2013 to 2018. Assuming good health, Paxton should have no trouble reaching those performance incentives to make this contract a clean $10MM.
Health hasn’t always been Paxton’s strong suit, of course. Before missing most of 2020 with a left flexor strain, Paxton spent time on the injured list with knee inflammation, left forearm contusions twice, lower back inflammation, a strained pectoral muscle, a left elbow contusion, a strained tendon in his middle finger, as well as twice hitting the shelf in 2014 with a left Latissimus dorsi muscle strain (read: back). He made just five starts for the Yankees this season after 29, 28, 24, and 20 the four years prior. Despite the litany of ailments, Paxton had largely persevered before missing most of 2020.
It’s worth mentioning, the Mariners have been clear about their intentions to run out a six-man rotation in 2021. Still, a healthy season would get Paxton well past the 20 games threshold, and the additional time between starts is more likely to help Paxton make it to 20 games than hurt. The 32-year-old will slot near the top of the Mariners’ rotation along with fellow southpaws Marco Gonzales, Yusei Kikuchi, and Justus Sheffield. Right-handers Chris Flexen and Justin Dunn are expected to round out the six-man crew.
For the Mariners, the deal has little downside. Seattle still has a payroll under $100MM and their long-term flexibility intact. Meanwhile, they get to return Paxton to the team that drafted him in the fourth round of the 2010 draft. He made 102 starts over six seasons for the Mariners, earning himself a reputation as a starter with frontline potential by way of a 3.58 ERA/3.13 FIP over 582 1/3 innings to that point. The Mariners dealt him to the Yankees following the 2018 season for Dom Thompson-Williams, Erik Swanson, and Sheffield. The Mariners will now enjoy at least one season of Paxton and Sheffield in the rotation together.
On the diamond, Paxton has the potential to move the needle for the Mariners. Limited to just 20 1/3 inning in 2020, Paxton entered free agency on the heels of an uninspiring 6.64 ERA. His 90.7 mph opponents’ exit velocity was a career-high, and his average heater dipped by about three miles per hour. A 32.1 percent groundball rate continued a two-year spike in flyball rate, which led to more home runs allowed in the Bronx. Prior to joining the Yankees, however, Paxton had a 44.7 percent groundball rate.
Many of Paxton’s other metrics, however, were more bullish. He registered a 4.37 FIP/3.88 SIERA, typically-strong 28.9 percent strikeout rate and a 7.8 percent walk rate that was better than the league average of 9.2 percent. At this price point, betting on a return to his career norms is a reasonable gamble for the M’s, who continue to position themselves as a potential sleeper in a year when the AL West looks more wide open than ever.
Mariners Sign Taylor Guerrieri, JT Chargois To Minor League Deals
The Mariners have signed right-handers Taylor Guerrieri and JT Chargois to minor league contracts with invitations to Major League Spring Training, per a paid of club announcements.
Now 28 years old, Guerreri once ranked as one of baseball’s premier pitching prospects. The Rays selected him with the No. 24 overall pick back in 2011, and he was considered to be among the game’s 100 best prospects for the next three years.
As is the case so often with promising young hurlers, however, Guerrieri’s development was halted by Tommy John surgery. Guerrieri underwent that operation midway through the 2013 season and missed all of 2014 as a result. He’s battled other arm troubles since that time and, to this point in his career, has only topped 100 innings in a season on one occasion. He was healthy for the 2019 season, splitting the year between the Majors and Triple-A in a relief role with the Rangers.
Guerrieri tossed 28 1/3 innings with Texas that year and another 9 2/3 with the Blue Jays a year prior, but his results at the MLB level haven’t been impressive so far. In 36 frames, he’s been tagged for a 5.50 ERA with nearly as many walks (22) as strikeouts (27). However, Guerrieri was quite good with the Rangers’ Nashville affiliate in 2019, and he’s displayed elite spin on his curveball in limited big league action.
Chargois, 30, was a second-round pick by the Twins back in 2012 and at one point looked like he could be a future closer in Minnesota. He posted dominant minor league numbers with sizable strikeout rates and an upper-90s heater, but Chargois hasn’t yet found his footing in the big leagues. The Rice University product has just a 4.58 ERA in 76 2/3 MLB frames, though his 3.40 SIERA, 26.3 percent strikeout rate and 9.9 percent walk rate are a bit more encouraging. Chargois pitched with Japan’s Rakuten Eagles last year and struggled to a 5.81 ERA in 26 1/3 innings of work in that tiny sample, but he has a lengthy minor league track record of success — including a 1.90 ERA in 85 1/3 Triple-A frames.
AL West Notes: La Stella, Mariners, Heim, Rangers, Andrus, A’s
Before Tommy La Stella signed a three-year, $18.75MM deal with the Giants, the infielder drew some attention from the Mariners, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reports (Twitter link). La Stella would’ve been an intriguing add for Seattle, providing a mostly right-handed hitting lineup with some addition balance from the left side. La Stella likely would have slotted in as the everyday second baseman — supplanting the planned Ty France/Shed Long/Dylan Moore timeshare at the position — and also seen some activity at first base or even third base when Kyle Seager required an off-day.
It isn’t known if the M’s were specifically keyed in on La Stella, or if they could still be looking for another regular infielder. There isn’t much in the way of infeld options remaining in free agency that would provide as clear an upgrade over the France/Long/Moore trio, though one would suspect Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto is as open as ever to trade possibilities. Surprisingly, “Trader Jerry” has only swung one deal this offseason, acquiring Rafael Montero from the Rangers.
More from the AL West…
- Athletics GM David Forst spoke to reporters (including Shayna Rubin of the Bay Area News Group and Matt Kawahara of the San Francisco Chronicle) about today’s big five-player trade with the Rangers. Oakland first touched base with the Rangers about Elvis Andrus back in November, and quickly circled back to Andrus after the A’s top shortstop option (re-signing Marcus Semien) was no longer a reality. Catcher Jonah Heim had drawn interest from Texas for the last two years, Forst said, so the young backstop was a natural inclusion in the trade.
- While Forst didn’t confirm today’s reports of an agreement between the Athletics and Mike Fiers, he did say that “pitchers are a target for us right now” in both the rotation and bullpen. “I made a lot of calls on relievers today. There’s a lot of talent at the end of the bullpen and not a lot of experience, and we feel like there’s some options that can add to the experience,” Forst said. “We are shopping a little late, but we have some targets in mind and are excited to add to the team.” As for other positions, Forst said the team is pretty satisfied with its current second base mix of Chad Pinder, Tony Kemp, Vimael Machin and Sheldon Neuse heading into Spring Training, so another infield addition doesn’t appear to be in the cards.
- In other division news from earlier today, the Astros and Carlos Correa avoided an arbitration hearing by agreeing to a contract for the 2021 season.
Infield Notes: Phillies, Simmons, Wong, Tigers, Paredes
The Phillies narrowed their focus on Andrelton Simmons before he signed with the Twins this afternoon, writes Scott Lauber of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Didi Gregorius remains in play to return, but he may not be so keen on another one-year deal. Regardless, the Phillies prefer not to move Jean Segura back to short, notes Lauber. Even with Gregorius more-or-less the only remaining starting shortstop on the market, Segura’s presence, as well as Scott Kingery, means they don’t have to panic on an overpay. Should they ultimately strike out on Gregorius, Jonathan Villar and Hanser Alberto lurk as free agents, or the Phils could turn to the trade market to make a play for either Trevor Story of the Rockies or Javier Baez of the Cubs. Neither club has seemed particularly likely to move their star shortstop, but Phillies’ president of baseball ops Dave Dombrowski might be the guy to convince them. Let’s check in on some other infield news…
- With middle infielders flying off the shelves, Kolten Wong is seeing an uptick in interest, per MLB Network’s Jon Morosi (via Twitter). The ace defensive second baseman has seen at least preliminary interest from the Tigers, Mariners, Rays, Cubs, Phillies, and Cardinals, with whom he’s spent his entire career. Wong’s power disappeared in 2020, slashing .265/.350/.326, but he won a second consecutive Gold Glove Award and continued to be an on-base presence for the Cardinals. Wong has quietly posted 3.3 bWAR per 600 plate appearances throughout his career, and as he enters his age-30 season, he could prove one of the more impactful free agents remaining on the market.
- The Tigers plan on experimenting with Isaac Paredes at second base, writes Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press. Paredes is penciled in as the Tigers’ everyday third baseman, but manager A.J. Hinch said basically that there is no harm in expanding the 21-year-old’s skill set. He’s been on fire playing winter ball, and with Jeimer Candelario having a big season in 2020 (and Spencer Torkelson on his way to claim one of the infield corners,) it’s certainly worth testing the limits of Paredes’ defensive abilities.