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Quick Hits: Saltalamacchia, Harrison, Cardinals

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Jarrod Saltalamacchia experienced a dramatic culture change when he went from a veteran Red Sox team to the Marlins this offseason, writes David Laurila of FanGraphs. “There aren’t 25-30 [reporters] waiting for you after a game like in Boston,” Saltalamacchia says. “Otherwise, the biggest difference is that there are a lot of younger guys. I’m finding myself saying things like ‘This is how we did it’ or ‘This is what I’ve seen.’ In some ways, it’s almost more of a coaching [role].” Saltalamacchia is one of several Marlins veteran hitters, including Garrett Jones, Casey McGehee, Rafael Furcal, Jeff Baker and Reed Johnson. But the team’s pitching staff remains very young, with an average age of just 25.7. Here are more notes from around baseball.

  • Matt Harrison pitched six innings in his first big-league game since last April for the Rangers on Sunday. Texas lost, but having Harrison back should provide a boost for a Rangers rotation that had struggled with injuries — the team had acquired the now-departed Tommy Hanson late in the offseason, and Joe Saunders in spring training. The Rangers’ rotation now features Yu Darvish, Martin Perez, Robbie Ross and Colby Lewis along with Harrison.
  • The Cardinals have missed Carlos Beltran so far this season, Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes. Re-signing Beltran wouldn’t have made sense given the Cardinals’ outfield talent, but with Allen Craig struggling badly so far this year in right field, the Cards could use Beltran’s power. The Cardinals have a number of Triple-A outfielders hitting well (Oscar Taveras, Stephen Piscotty, Joey Butler and Randal Grichuk), but so far, they haven’t turned to them. Of course, it’s no surprise that they would continue with Craig in right field, given his track record and contract. (Soon after this post was published, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch tweeted that the Cardinals would promote Grichuk and infielder Greg Garcia, optioning outfielder Shane Robinson and second baseman Kolten Wong in the process.)

Oscar Taveras Changes Agencies

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Cardinals prospect Oscar Taveras has changed agencies yet again, according to a report from Jesse Sanchez of MLB.com (via Twitter). Taveras will now be represented by Dan Lozano and Brian Mejia of MVP Sports Group.

Taveras, 21, has moved between agencies quite a bit for a player who has yet to see his first MLB action. The outfielder has consistently been rated as among the game’s very best prospects over the last few seasons, but injuries and the lack of need at the big league level have kept him in the upper minors. Taveras has produced at every level of the minors, and is off to a .297/.348/.500 start in his second stint at Triple-A (after a shortened season there in 2013).

Jeremy Jeffress Elects Free Agency

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FRIDAY: The White Sox, Brewers and Cardinals are three of the teams interested in Jeffress, TSN's Scott MacArthur reports.  Conversely, MLBDailyDish.com's Chris Cotillo (Twitter links) hears from a source that that the Cards aren't in the hunt but Jeffress' "decision [is] almost made" about his new club.  At least 15 clubs called about Jeffress once he became available, Cotillo notes.

THURSDAY: Blue Jays right-hander Jeremy Jeffress has rejected an outright assignment and elected free agency, reports Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports (via Twitter). Additionally, Jeffress is expected to sign with a new club within 24 to 48 hours, according to Passan.

A former Top 100 prospect (per Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus), Jeffress was selected 16th overall by the Brewers back in the 2006 draft. Jeffress has a 4.47 ERA and 50 strikeouts in 52 1/3 career Major League innings. However, he's also walked 38 batters in that time, illustrating the control issues that have followed him throughout his professional career. Jeffress has a 4.10 ERA with 9.9 K/9 and 5.3 BB/9 in 454 minor league innings.

Despite his control issues, it's not surprising that a new deal for Jeffress already appears to be close. He's still just 26 years of age, has fanned more than a batter per inning since being drafted, and in his Major League career he's posted a 53.6 percent ground-ball rate and averaged 95.9 mph on his fastball. Jeffress has a tantilizing skill set for teams in need of bullpen help, should he overcome some of his command problems.

Cardinals Extend John Mozeliak

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USATSI_7748197The Cardinals have announced that they have extended senior vice president and general manager John Mozeliak for two years, through the 2018 season. Last February, the Cardinals had signed Mozeliak to a three-year extension covering the 2014 through 2016 seasons.

Since Mozeliak's hiring following the 2007 season, the Cardinals have won one World Series (2011), appeared in another (2013), and made the playoffs four times, including in the last three seasons. They've had at least 86 wins in every season since hiring Mozeliak. Their farm system and player development program are highly regarded, and they've bolstered their current team with a number of products of Mozeliak's drafts — the Cardinals' 2009 draft, which included Shelby Miller, Joe Kelly, Matt Carpenter, Trevor Rosenthal and Matt Adams, is one of the best in recent history.

Other teams have attempted to emulate the Cardinals' success both at the big-league level and in player development. Most notably, after the 2011 season, the Astros hired Cardinals vice president of scouting and player development Jeff Luhnow to be their GM, citing the farm system he and the Cardinals had built as a key reason why.

Mozeliak's key moves this offseason included signing shortstop Jhonny Peralta to a four-year contract, extending Carpenter for six years, and trading David Freese and Fernando Salas to the Angels for Peter Bourjos and Randal Grichuk.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

NL Central Links: Miller, Gomez, Cubs

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A pair of intra-division matchups are on tap for the weekend as the Cardinals host the Cubs for a three-game series and the Pirates travel to Miller Park for a three-game set against the Brewers.  The Reds, meanwhile, will host the Rays in interleague play and face a tough matchup in Tampa ace David Price tonight.  Here's some news from around the NL Central…

  • Shelby Miller has struggled in his first two starts of 2014, and as Fangraphs' Dave Cameron explains, Miller's problems began at the end of last season, which explains his near-total absence from the Cardinals' playoff run.  An injury could be responsible for Miller's issues, "but this version of Shelby Miller isn’t very good, and unless he flips a switch sometime soon, [the Cardinals are] going to have to start looking for alternatives."
  • Carlos Gomez's strong 2013 season and his red-hot start to 2014 has made his three-year, $24MM extension from the Brewers "look like a steal," in the words of Sports Illustrated's Jay Jaffe.  Gomez's extension, signed in March 2013, kicked in this season and keeps the center fielder in Milwaukee through the 2016 campaign.  As Jaffe notes, it's rare for a player to improve as much as Gomez has after amassing over 1000 PA in the Major Leagues.
  • Jason McLeod, the Cubs' VP of scouting and player development, tells CSN Chicago's Patrick Mooney that though the Cubs' system is somewhat lacking in blue chip pitching prospects, it doesn't mean the Cubs will specifically focus on adding a young arm with the fourth overall pick of the 2014 draft.  “We’ve made no secret that we’ve tried to acquire as much pitching as we can….But if you look at our last two drafts, we’ve taken two position players with our first pick, because we felt Albert [Almora] and Kris [Bryant] were the best players at those picks," McLeod said.  "That’s how we’re going to approach this draft as well. We’re not going to draft on need. We’re going to draft the guy that we feel will provide that long-term impact for us.”

Central Notes: Segura, Cardinals, Royals, Lindstrom

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Brewers general manager Doug Melvin confirmed to Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that his club has tabled its extension talks with shortstop Jean Segura. Said Melvin: "Nothing was going to happen so we decided it didn't make sense to keep talking. We told Jean to just go out and play. We never close anything off but there's nothing going on now." As Haudricourt points out, Andrelton Simmons' seven-year, $58MM deal likely didn't do the Brewers any favors. Segura will $534K in 2014, representing a healthy (when compared to the salaries of many pre-arbitration players) bump over the $500K Major League minimum.

More from baseball's Central divisions…

  • Shelby Miller was the landmark pick that demonstrated how the Cardinals would evaluate, draft and develop pitching back in 2009, writes Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Goold describes the Cards' prioritization of athleticism and velocity. Former Cardinals pitcher and current Padres scout Kevin Jarvis tells Goold: "For those of us in the game, what they have done should be analyzed, evaluated and then emulated."
  • On the other side of the spectrum, the Kansas City Star's Andy McCullough examines the Royals' difficulty in developing starting pitchers over the years. McCullough spoke with left-hander John Lamb, whose rise and fall as one of the game's top pitching prospects has been well documented in the Kansas City media after he fell victim to Tommy John surgery. He also spoke with several Royals officials, who admitted their difficulty is a combination of bad luck and one particularly woeful decision. One Royals official said the decision to draft Christian Colon over Chris Sale is, to this day, the lone decision that causes him to lose sleep. However, consensus among the Royals' brass at the time was that Sale wouldn't last as a starter (they were far from the only ones to think so).
  • White Sox manager Robin Ventura told reporters today, inlcuding Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times, that Matt Lindstrom will open the season as his closer. That's big news for Lindstrom, whose free agent stock next offseason could rise substantially with a successful season in the ninth inning. GM Rick Hahn said he hopes Lindstrom takes the closer's role and runs with it, but the bullpen roles are "not etched in stone" (Twitter links). For those fantasy baseball players out there, remember that you can follow @closernews on Twitter during the season to get daily tips and news updates for chasing saves in your leagues.

Quick Hits: Cardinals, Lester, Penny

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John Gibbons of the Blue Jays, Kirk Gibson of the Diamondbacks, and Terry Collins of the Mets are among the managers currently on the hot seat, writes FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal. Gibbons presided over an extremely disappointing 2013 Jays season, Gibson's Diamondbacks haven't taken a step forward, and Collins might become a victim of unfair expectations. Here are more notes from around baseball.

  • Good closers come from a wide variety of backgrounds, and big-name closers aren't always what they seem to be, Tyler Kepner shows in a long piece for the New York Times. That means overpaying for a closer can be a mistake. "We had a different guy for about six years in a row — Joe Borowski, Todd Jones, Armando Benitez," says Marlins director of baseball operations Dan Noffsinger. "Each one of these guys would have 30-plus saves, be successful and go get a bigger contract elsewhere. We would just move on to the next guy." The Marlins' example shows one reason why the Orioles were willing to trade Jim Johnson this offseason, for example, and the White Sox were willing to deal Addison Reed.
  • The selection of Shelby Miller in the first round of the 2009 draft marked a turning point for the Cardinals, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes. "By the time we picked Miller, I think our knowledge base in at least how to avoid the high-risk players had evolved to the point where we felt more comfortable fishing in those waters," says Astros GM Jeff Luhnow, who ran the Cardinals' draft at the time. "He had the delivery. He had the pitches that we thought could develop. The size. The makeup. We had learned from our mistakes." Goold points out that before Miller, the Cardinals hadn't selected a pitcher in the first 30 picks of the draft since 1991. The Cardinals attacked the problem of which high-school pitchers were the best picks by looking at big-league pitchers and figuring out why they succeeded, and they focused on arm strength and athleticism. Later in that same 2009 draft, the Cardinals also selected Joe Kelly and Trevor Rosenthal.
  • Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester isn't concerned about his impending free agency, writes Scott Lauber of the Boston Herald. "If I use that for motivation, I’ve got problems," Lester says. "That’s not what motivates me to go out and pitch and get better. Money has never driven me." Lester and the Red Sox recently suspended negotiations on an extension.
  • Free agent pitcher Brad Penny has changed agencies from to the Legacy Agency to Millennium Sports, MLB Daily Dish's Chris Cotillo tweets. In early March, the Royals released Penny from their minor-league deal with him.

Cardinals Sign David Aardsma

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After being released by the Indians, reliever David Aardsma has signed with the Cardinals, according to a report from Derick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (links to Twitter). The contract is a minor league deal, meaning he will still need to earn a roster spot.

Aardsma, 32, threw 39 2/3 frames for the Mets last year, posting a 4.31 ERA, after a long layoff due to Tommy John surgery. He notched 8.2 K/9 against 4.3 BB/9, while generating just a 32.8% ground-ball rate. Advanced metrics were all over the map last year for Aardsma — 5.27 FIP; 4.63 xFIP; 4.01 SIERA. As Steve Adams wrote in discussing Aardsma's release from Cleveland, the righty has not regained his pre-surgery, mid-90s fastball velocity, so it remains to be seen whether he will be able to continue improving back towards his strong form over 2009-10, when he served as the Mariners closer.

Added To The 40-Man Roster: Sunday

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Between now and Opening Day, several minor league signees will win jobs with their clubs and earn 40-man roster spots. Here are today's additions:

Central Links: Shields, Samardzija, Pirates, Twins, Kozma

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While there haven't been any extension talks (and won't be) between the Royals and James Shields, Jon Heyman of CBS Sports writes that it's not completely out of the question for Shields to re-sign their ace this coming offseason. However, in order to do so, the team will need to make the postseason, he adds. Royals executives have said that they might take a loss this year due to the team's record payroll, but they also believe that a postseason run could push them into the black, according to Heyman. That type of turnaround could keep them in the bidding to retain Shields, who will hit free agency entering his age-33 season.

Here's more on baseball's Central divisions…

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