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Tim Beckham

White Sox To Select Andrew Vaughn

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Prized White Sox prospect Andrew Vaughn has made the team’s Opening Day roster. He isn’t on Chicago’s 40-man, so the team will need to select him.

The White Sox could have gained an extra year of service time by keeping Vaughn down for the first few weeks of the season, but executive vice president Ken Williams said last week that wouldn’t be a motivating factor in their decision. The team was true to its word. If Vaughn doesn’t return to the minors, he’ll be controllable through 2026 and eligible for arbitration after 2023, though the White Sox could certainly extend him before then, as they’ve done on multiple occasions in recent years with offensive building blocks such as Yoan Moncada, Tim Anderson, Eloy Jimenez and Luis Robert.

General manager Rick Hahn stated Tuesday (via James Fegan of The Athletic), “Having Andrew around will be a positive for this offense.” The White Sox expect Vaughn to factor in at designated hitter, first base and left field, according to Hahn.

It became easier to envision Vaughn making Chicago’s season-opening roster when the club received the devastating news of Jimenez’s ruptured pectoral tendon last week. Jimenez underwent surgery Tuesday and remains likely to miss at least five to six months, Hahn said. The hope is that Vaughn will help fill Jimenez’s enormous offensive void.

Now 22 years old, Vaughn is a former University of California standout whom the White Sox drafted third overall in 2019 and then signed to a $7.2MM-plus bonus. Vaughn hasn’t gotten above High-A ball since then, but he has held his own in the minors, having slashed .278/.384/.449 in 245 plate appearances. He has also looked ready for prime time this spring with a .279/.375/.459 line and six extra-base hits (three doubles, two home runs and a triple) in 61 at-bats.

Along with Vaughn’s addition, the White Sox made a handful of other roster moves Tuesday. They optioned infielder Danny Mendick to their alternate site and reassigned fellow infielders Tim Beckham, Zach Remillard and Matt Reynolds, outfielder Nick Williams, and right-hander Ryan Burr. The club also made the previously reported release of catcher Jonathan Lucroy official.

White Sox, Tim Beckham Agree To Minor League Deal

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The White Sox have agreed to a minor league contract with infielder Tim Beckham, reports Bob Nightengale of USA Today (via Twitter). The Wasserman client will receive a $1.35MM base salary in 2021 if he makes the roster.

Technically teams are still in the period of exclusive negotiations with their own free agents, but Beckham was unsigned for the 2020 season and thus free to negotiate with any club. He was hit with an 80-game PED suspension back in Aug. 2019. He’s already served a portion of that ban but will presumably still need to serve the remainder before he’s eligible to suit up for a big league club.

Beckham was the No. 1 overall pick of the Rays in the 2008 draft, and while he has had his moments since then,it has largely been a disappointing career. Now 30 years old, Beckham has combined for a .249/.302/.431 with 63 home runs and 31 stolen bases over 1,751 trips to the plate with the Rays, Orioles and Mariners. During his most recent action, he batted a similar .237/.293/.461 and smacked 15 HRs across 328 PA.

Defensively, Beckham has seen plenty of action all over the infield and even some in the corner outfield. So, if he does make the White Sox, Beckham could serve as insurance behind the likes of Yoan Moncada, Tim Anderson, Nick Madrigal and Eloy Jimenez.

No Deal Between Padres & Tim Beckham

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9:17am: Halt the presses on this one: Heyman now tweets that he mixed up his Beckhams. The Friars were already known to have a deal with infielder Gordon Beckham.

8:32am: The Padres have signed shortstop Tim Beckham, according to Jon Heyman of MLB Network (Twitter link). It’s a minor-league arrangement.

Though Beckham can compete in camp for a spot in the pecking order in the San Diego system, he won’t be a candidate to head north on the active roster. He’ll first need to finish serving an 80-game PED suspension.

Beckham would first be eligible to appear with the Pads about a month into the season, but it stands to reason he’ll be ticketed for Triple-A to begin his time with the organization. There isn’t an immediate opening for a roster spot now anyway, though the situation could be quite a bit different come May.

If things go well, Beckham could give the Friars an alternative or complement to second baseman Jurickson Profar. The club also features utility options Ty France and Greg Garcia.

The 30-year-old Beckham has had quite the roller-coaster of a career. He’ll never reach the promise that some foresaw when he was selected with the first overall pick of the 2008 draft. Beckham has had his moments over the years, with stretches of useful and even high-quality play in the majors, but has not yet found consistency.

All told, Beckham owns a .249/.302/.431 lifetime slash line through 1,751 plate appearances — roughly league-average output. He’s probably not quite an average fielder at shortstop and doesn’t run the bases particularly well, but there’s ample reason to believe he’s good enough for a platoon or reserve infield job of some kind in the majors.

Orioles Interested In Tim Beckham

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This has been a quiet winter for the rebuilding Orioles, but they’re now showing interest in a familiar free agent. They’ve discussed a minor league contract for infielder Tim Beckham, Roch Kubatko of MASNSports.com reports.

There’s history between Baltimore and Beckham, a former No. 1 overall pick of the Rays who played with the Orioles from 2017-18. Beckham was successful in the first of those seasons in Baltimore, stumbled during the latter and then signed a major league contract worth $1.75MM with the Mariners last winter. That deal didn’t work out great for either side, however.

Even though Beckham got off to a strong start in a Mariners uniform, his production and playing time dipped as the season progressed. The 29-year-old wound up posting a .237/.293/.461 line with 15 home runs in 328 plate appearances before MLB issued him an 80-game suspension for performance-enhancing drugs in early August.

Beckham has already served a sizable portion of his ban, but that wasn’t enough to prevent the Mariners from non-tendering him earlier this offseason. The suspension has also likely stopped him from landing a guaranteed deal this offseason. If he does head back to Baltimore, though, Beckham could eventually grab an infield role on a last-place team that’s projected to start Jose Iglesias at shortstop, Hanser Alberto at second base and Rio Ruiz at third.

Mariners Non-Tender Domingo Santana, Tim Beckham

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The Mariners have non-tendered outfielder Domingo Santana and infielder Tim Beckham, per a club announcement. Both players are now free agents.

These moves open a pair of roster spots for the M’s to work with. It’ll also save a bit of salary space. The former projected to earn $4.4MM in his second-to-last season of team control, while the latter might have commanded $3.0MM in what would have been a walk year.

It rates as something of a surprise to see Santana cut loose. He has had his ups and downs over the years but generally turns in solid offensive output. The situation with Beckham is more one of disappointment. He had been playing well in Seattle before a performance-enhancing drug suspension cut short his 2019 campaign.

Santana could potentially be a candidate to be claimed, though obviously the M’s were unable to achieve a trade return. He was off to a big start with the bat in 2019 before running into elbow problems that drove his numbers down and ended up costing him a big chunk of time.

Still just 27 years of age, Santana owns a .259/.343/.453 career batting line. He was right at that level last year as well. Unfortunately, Santana has never quite found his footing in the field. He graded terribly last year.

Beckham isn’t ever going to be the kind of player that was hoped when he went first overall in the 2008 draft. But he has settled in as a generally useful middle infielder with a league-average bat. He might well have been worth the projected arb value but for the PED suspension.

AL Notes: Yankees, O’s, R. Nunez, Mariners, Felix

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Yankees second baseman Gleyber Torres left the team’s game Tuesday with a potential injury, per George A. King III of the New York Post. It’s the second time since Sunday that Torres had to exit with a possible ailment, as he departed the club’s game that night with what manager Aaron Boone called “a core issue.” Torres was subsequently cleared of a sports hernia – which teammate Luke Voit is dealing with – and was in the Yankees’ starting lineup Monday and Tuesday. The team’s now once again left to hold its breath that Torres will be fine. The Yankees, to their credit, have withstood one significant injury after another this year en route to an AL-best 73-39 record. Their success has come thanks in no small part to the 22-year-old Torres, who has slashed .281/.347/.505 with 23 home runs in 439 plate appearances. [UPDATE: Torres left with “core pain,” Pete Caldera of the Bergen Record was among those to report. He’ll return to New York to undergo more tests, Erik Boland of Newsday tweets.]

As for Voit, it’s still unknown whether he’ll undergo surgery, though an answer could come in the next week, Boone suggested Tuesday (via Kristie Ackert of the New York Daily News). With time running out in the season, it’s possible Voit won’t be able to return until the playoffs – and perhaps not at all – if he does go under the knife, as Ackert points out.

Here’s the latest on two other American League teams:

  • Orioles designated hitter/corner infielder Renato Nunez drew some interest prior to the trade deadline, Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com writes. The Orioles wound up keeping Nunez, a May 2018 waiver claim who has taken advantage of regular playing time this year to hit .246/.313/.486 with 25 home runs in 434 plate appearances. Nunez, 25, won’t be eligible for arbitration until after next season.
  • Mariners infielder Tim Beckham received an 80-game suspension for performance-enhancing drugs Tuesday, but his time on their roster might have been on the verge of ending even before then. Although he still has a year of arbitration eligibility remaining, Beckham was a candidate for a designation for assignment, according to the Seattle Times’ Ryan Divish. The Mariners could have cut Beckham to make room for outfield prospect Jake Fraley sometime soon, Divish reports. However, Fraley is dealing with a quad injury at the moment. The Mariners will need to add Fraley to their 40-man roster if they do promote him, but they have four openings right now. The club acquired Fraley from the Rays in last offseason’s Mallex Smith/Mike Zunino trade.
  • Sticking with the Mariners, injured outfielder Mitch Haniger and starter Felix Hernandez are progressing in their recoveries, Greg Johns of MLB.com explains. Haniger, out since June 7 with a ruptured testicle, is closing in on a rehab assignment, manager Scott Servais said Tuesday. And Hernandez, whom right shoulder problems have kept from the majors since May 11, will make a second rehab start Thursday. The 33-year-old King Felix may be able to return in late August, Johns notes, which could give the pending free agent and Mariners legend a chance to say goodbye to the franchise and its fans.

Tim Beckham Receives 80-Game PED Suspension

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Mariners infielder Tim Beckham has been suspended for eighty games under the MLB-MLBPA Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program, according to a league announcement. The league says that Beckham tested positive for the banned performance-enhancing drug Stanozolol.

The 29-year-old Beckham was the first overall pick of the 2008 draft. He joined the Seattle organization on a one-year, $1.75MM contract over the winter after struggling last season with the Orioles.

In a statement, Beckham places the blame on a “tainted” substance he was given by “a trusted source.” (Twitter link via MLBPA.) But his appeal to the league was already considered and rejected.

Beckham had been in the midst of a solid bounceback season. He has continued to struggle to reach base consistently, but made up for that with sufficient pop to produce at a league-average rate. Over 328 plate appearances in Seattle, he owns a .237/.293/.461 slash with 15 home runs.

It had seemed that Beckham was a candidate to be traded at the deadline — or, perhaps, to move via waiver claim this month. Instead, he’ll spend the rest of the year on the restricted list and seek a new chance next year. Beckham will still have to sit out for 32 games to begin the 2020 season.

Mariners Reportedly Looking To Sell

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TODAY: The Mariners “have shown a willingness to eat significant money in” trades, ESPN’s Jeff Passan tweets, and “almost every veteran on their roster” is available.  We’ve seen the first instance of this earlier today, as Seattle covered $18MM of the approximately $21.5MM remaining on Jay Bruce’s contract in trading Bruce to the Phillies.

SATURDAY: The Mariners, who’ve gone a staggering 12-33 after a 13-2 start in which the club made its fans forget the cavernous dimensions of T-Mobile Park, are “deep in sell mode,” tweets MLB Network’s Jon Heyman, who lists Edwin Encarnacion, Ryon Healy, Dee Gordon, Mike Leake and Tim Beckham among the players the club is “talking” about.

None in the group seem likely to net a significant return – the 36-year-old Encarnacion may be the most attractive piece, despite the some $18MM remaining on his contract – though it’s possible GM Jerry Dipoto would simply like to clear space for younger players. One feather in Encarnacion’s (and the Mariners’) cap is his renewed vigor in the infield: the one-time third-baseman is on pace for the most first-base innings in his fifteen-year career, and has thus far been surprisingly adequate at the position, per both DRS and UZR. The aging slugger, who’s now just seven homers shy of 400 for his career, seemed on a clear DH-only trajectory after two seasons in Cleveland where he totaled just 388 innings at the position, but has nearly eclipsed that mark in just two short months in Seattle. The three-time all-star’s on pace for nearly 3.0 fWAR in ’19, with a hard-hit rate hovering around his peak average, though teams aren’t typically clamoring for 1B/DHs in the rental market, even one with a track record as glowing as Edwin’s.

Thirty-one year-old Gordon, twice an all-star earlier in his career, is still owed approximately $22MM on his deal through 2020, and may indeed have negative surplus value at this point. After a poor 2018 showing, in which the second baseman-turned-center-fielder posted 0.1 fWAR on the back of a 77 wRC+ and hard-to-fathom 1.5% BB rate, the again infielder hasn’t been much better this year, posting just a .281/.310/.369 line (85 wRC+) with a stolen-base rate that doesn’t even begin to approach the standard he’d set from 2014-17. It’s true that Gordon’s ground-ball rate has dropped below 50% for the first time in his career, and that he’s flashing a bit more power than usual, but it’s hard to foresee this profile netting much more than a bit of salary relief.

Mix-and-match artist Leake, now 31 and with over 1,700 big-league innings under his belt, is still owed upwards of $30MM on his deal that extends through 2020 and is currently in midst of the worst season of his career. Leake’s homer rate has skyrocketed to an a galactical 2.23 per nine, thanks mostly to a career-low grounder rate and an average fastball velocity that’s down over four MPH from his 2015 peak of 93.1. FanGraphs places Leake’s value at below replacement-level this season, and peripheral markers aren’t encouraged. His value would seem to mirror Gordon’s closely.

Former number-one overall pick Beckham appeared to have finally turned the corner this season after an early-season hot streak that catapulted him to the top of the league’s leaders in nearly every relevant statistical category. Still sporting an impressive 119 wRC+, Beckham’s secondary markers appear much the same as in years past: his 6.3% walk rate aligns exactly with his career total, and the 30% K rate is actually higher than the standard he’d set in the four years previous. Beckham’s .342 wOBA, on the strength of a middling 32% hard-hit rate, isn’t sustainable, per Statcast, who estimates his true (expected) wOBA title at just .312. The 29-year-old’s defense, too, has been far less than stellar this season, with DRS pegging him at a particularly cruel -7 runs saved already. He’s in his second-to-last year of arbitration, and may yet be a utility target for some contending clubs, but not one that’s likely to yield a blue-chipper in return.

Lesser names, like Healy, Wade LeBlanc, Hunter Strickland, and Domingo Santana, whose 119 wRC+ has been almost entirely offset by poor corner defense, aren’t likely to be coveted on the market. Third baseman Kyle Seager has been hurt for much of the early season, and recent-years returns are probably enough for interested teams to leave the some $50MM remaining on his deal behind.

If Dipoto is feeling particularly frisky, the team could try dangling each of Daniel Vogelbach, Mitch Haniger, Marco Gonzales, and Omar Narvaez to interested teams, though it seems the club is set on contending in the near future, and each of those players are controlled through at least the 2022 season.

Mariners To Sign Tim Beckham

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The Mariners have agreed to a one-year contract with free-agent infielder Tim Beckham, tweets Bob Nightengale of USA Today. The Wasserman client will earn a $1.75MM base salary and can take home another $250K worth of incentives as part of the deal.

Tim Beckham | Mitch Stringer-USA TODAY Sports

Beckham, non-tendered by the Orioles earlier this winter, fits the mold described by Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto recently when he said he expected to sign a “middle-of-the-infield stabilizer” to provide some protection for trade acquisition J.P. Crawford.

Crawford, acquired in the trade that sent Jean Segura to the Phillies, still figures to get the opportunity to prove that he can be the Mariners’ long-term answer at shortstop, but by adding Beckham, the Mariners are bringing in an experienced player to hold down the position in the event that Crawford struggles early and requires additional minor league time to get up to speed. It’s worth noting that Crawford has just over a full year of Major League service (one year, 20 days), so if the Mariners don’t give him 152 days of Major League service in 2019, he won’t reach a full second year of service and will thus be controlled for a full extra season. There’s no indication that Seattle plans to deliberately operate in that manner, but it’ll be an interesting scenario to watch unfold.

Beckham, 29 later this month, was the No. 1 overall pick by the Rays back in the 2008 draft. He’s obviously been unable to live up to that lofty billing to this point in his career, but he did post a quality .269/.320/.449 batting line with 27 home runs, 30 doubles and 10 triples in 790 plate appearances between the Rays and Orioles from 2016-17. Strikeouts were an ongoing issue for Beckham during that time, though, as he punched out in more than 30 percent of his plate appearances in that time.

Beckham managed to curtail those strikeout woes substantially in 2018, dropping his strikeout rate to 24.9 percent. However, his overall production at the plate dissipated as well; he batted just .230/.287/.374 in Baltimore last season and saw his hard-hit rate fell by roughly five percent, per Statcast. Even if Beckham can’t replicate his 2016-17 production (and/or Crawford quickly takes to the everyday shortstop role), his right-handed bat could pair nicely with the left-handed-hitting Kyle Seager at third base.

Because he has four years, 134 days of Major League service time, Beckham wouldn’t qualify as a free agent next winter even if he spends the entire season on the Mariners’ roster. He’d remain arbitration-eligible for one final season, thus making him a potential multi-year option in Seattle, even if he ultimately settles into a platoon or utility role.

Orioles Non-Tender Tim Beckham, Caleb Joseph

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The Orioles announced that shortstop Tim Beckham and catcher Caleb Joseph have been non-tendered. Both are heading onto the open market; the former had projected to earn a $4.3MM salary, the latter $1.7MM.

Beckham seemed to have turned a corner when he landed with the O’s last year, but he fell back to earn in 2018. Over 402 plate appearances, he slashed just .230/.287/.374 and did not grade well at short. As for Joseph, he has bounced up and down with the bat in recent years but turned in a miserable .219/.254/.321 season last year.

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