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Tom Koehler Retires

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Right-hander Tom Koehler, in camp with the Pirates as a non-roster invitee to Spring Training, announced his retirement from baseball on Instagram this morning. The 33-year-old Koehler says he’s looking forward to “starting [his] next chapter in the game,” whenever and whatever that may hold. For now, it seems as though he’ll take some time with his family.

Tom Koehler

From 2013-16, Koehler was a solid and durable constant at the back of the Marlins’ rotation, averaging 30 starts per season while pitching to a 4.14 ERA with averages of 6.8 strikeouts, 3.7 walks and 1.0 home runs per nine innings pitched. He struggled early in the 2017 season and found himself traded to the Blue Jays, with whom he posted an intriguing 15-game relief stint (2.65 ERA, 18-to-6 K/BB ratio in 17 innings). That showing prompted the Dodgers to take a look at Koehler in the offseason with the hope that he could transform his career as a late-inning bullpen piece.

Instead, Koehler was beset by shoulder injuries in 2018. After spending more than half the season trying to rehab an anterior capsule strain and make his Dodgers debut, Koehler underwent surgery that ended his 2018 season. He never threw a pitch at the MLB level for the Dodgers. He signed with the Pirates both last offseason and earlier this winter but wasn’t able to get back onto the hill.

It’s a tough way to end a playing career, although as an 18th-round senior sign back in 2008, Koehler exceeded any and all expectations. The Stony Brook alum pitched in 161 Major League games, totaling 784 1/3 innings of 4.39 ERA ball along the way. Koehler’s 36-55 record is more an indictment on the sub-par Marlins rosters surrounding him for much of his career than on his own abilities on the mound. He was generally a serviceable option, twice leading the club in games started and once leading them in innings pitched. Koehler was never a household name but pitched into his arbitration years, helping him to secure more than $12MM in total salary. Best wishes to Koehler in whatever path he next pursues.

Blue Jays Planning For Biggio To Be Second Baseman

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  • Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoya  says Cavan Biggio is the Blue Jays second baseman. Still, given how spring training takes shape, Biggio will be keeping his outfielder glove within reach. The particularly contingency to track, per The Athletic’s Jayson Stark (via Twitter), is Joe Panik. Outside of those two, it’s not a deep field of second base contenders. Santiago Espinal, 25, hit .317/.360/.433 in his first taste of Triple-A in 2019, certainly showing enough to get a look this spring. Brandon Drury and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. also have experience at the keystone. Gurriel is ticketed as the everyday starter in left field, which is a position of equal or greater need for the Blue Jays unless something clicks for a youngster like Billy McKinney or Forrest Wall. Travis Shaw, theoretically, could also see time at second base, but he’s more likely to get his at-bats at first, third, or the designated hitter spot. Ruben Tejada, 30, and Kevin Smith, 23, are also both in camp as non-roster invitees. 

Collin McHugh Cleared To Begin Throwing

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10:06PM: The Blue Jays are one of the teams with some interest in McHugh, as TSN’s Scott Mitchell (Twitter link) reports that the right-hander “has been discussed internally” within Toronto’s front office.

11:03AM: Free-agent righty Collin McHugh has recently been cleared to begin a throwing program after undergoing a (non-surgical) tenex procedure on his right elbow, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman tweets. A wide range of clubs have recently checked in on his status.

The latest update on McHugh — and really the first of the offseason — indicates that he’s a ways behind pitchers who are currently in camp, so he’s not likely to be plugged into a team’s pitching staff from the outset of the season. McHugh missed about a third of the 2019 season due to ongoing discomfort in his right elbow and didn’t look like himself when he was healthy enough to take the mound. In 74 2/3 innings of work, he was hammered for a 4.70 ERA and a 4.43 FIP with 9.9 K/9, 3.6 BB/9, 1.45 HR/9 and a 38 percent grounder rate. The 32-year-old’s average fastball sat at 92.1 mph in 2018 but dipped to 90.8 mph in 2019. His swinging-strike rate, opponents’ exit velocity and opponents’ hard-hit rate all went in the wrong direction.

That said, McHugh was lights out in a bullpen setting in 2018, spinning a pristine 1.99 ERA through 72 1/3 innings with averages of 11.7 K/9, 2.6 BB/9 and 0.75 HR/9. And from 2014-17, McHugh was a quality rotation piece in Houston: 606 1/3 innings of 3.70 ERA (3.60 FIP) with 8.4 K/9 against 2.5 BB/9. He was one of the first spin-rate darlings in MLB, as the huge spin on his curve is reportedly what prompted the ’Stros to pluck him out of the Rockies organization via a 2013 waiver claim.

It’d be easy to make the case for how McHugh could help virtually any club in baseball. The price tag on him shouldn’t be too high at this point — if he requires a big league deal at all — so it’ll be more a question of where McHugh feels comfortable and feels he’s presented with the best opportunity. That could mean signing on with a rebuilding club that’ll give him rotation innings or suiting up for a win-now club with fewer innings to offer but greater promise of a return to the postseason. Those preferences will be for McHugh and agent Mike Moye to sort out, but interest in the right-hander should be robust now that he’s able to get on a throwing program and give prospective new teams a clearer timeline for his return.

Mark Shapiro On Blue Jays’ Outlook

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Blue Jays president Mark Shapiro discussed the state of his organization with Kaitlyn McGrath of The Athletic (subscription link). You’ll obviously want to read the full transcript for all the details, but we’ll cover a few key points here.

One of the more interesting observations from Shapiro relates to the hot stove more broadly. The precise course of the market every winter is never a given. If you went back and replayed the offseason you’d likely end up with quite different results.

Shapiro spoke of the Blue Jays’ surprise at the early free agent market development, saying that “some of the signs that happened were pretty far outside what our expectations were.” That forced the club to “adjust to what the market’s doing and still keep our values, but look at measuring what the level of inflation is, and then adjust our values for that inflation.”

One wonders whether the opposite has been true for various teams in the prior two offseasons, which were notably quiet for free agents. It remains quite the curiosity that we saw such a marked dive in spending activity for two-straight years before the market suddenly perked back up this time around.

Certainly, the Jays could’ve just shrugged and decided not to keep pace in the market bidding. Instead, it re-worked its expectations and kept after the best remaining players, ultimately walking away with quality southpaw Hyun-Jin Ryu. But stretching to land Ryu doesn’t necessarily mean the front office anticipates a postseason surge.

In terms of timing and expectation, Shapiro walked a line and avoided setting firm expectations. On the one hand, he says that upper management has “started to listen to our young players and just the power of their belief in each other … and the belief in their potential.” That’s part of the reason the club pushed for improvements this winter. At the same time, the team’s top executive isn’t setting runaway dreams. He didn’t want to cap the possibilities but also said that “.500 would be a big step forward in wins.”

So … what happens if the team does surprise and puts itself in contention in 2020? Adding more to the roster “would be spending outside of our budget, for sure,” says Shapiro — an evident nod to the fact that the club has plotted out some lower-spending years after ramping down from a 2016-18 cost inflection. But he also said that he’s “confident that we’ll get the support” from ownership when the time is right. The club is obviously dedicating attention and funds to broader building efforts; Shapiro spoke at length about the improved Dunedin facilities that he believes will help “lead to wins” in a multitude of subtle ways over the long haul.

In discussing the eventual need to ramp up the dedication of assets to the current MLB roster, Shapiro made another observation of broader interest. As he put it: “Usually, the dollars you spend at the trade deadline are not too significant because it’s part-season, partial season of salary.” It’s obviously also important that such investments are made with much greater knowledge of team need and likelihood of postseason qualification. Based upon Shapiro’s characterization, Jays fans can justifiably expect the club to push the pedal down when the young talent comes into its own and the competitive situation warrants further supplementation.

Blue Jays To Sign Marc Rzepczynski

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The Blue Jays have agreed to a minor league deal with veteran left-hander Marc Rzepczynski, manager Charlie Montoyo revealed when meeting with reporters Monday morning (Twitter link via Sportsnet’s Arden Zwelling). Rzepczynski still needs to complete his physical, but once he does, the JBA Sports client will head to Major League camp as a non-roster invitee.

Rzepczynski, 34, didn’t pitch in the big leagues in 2019 — the first time since 2008 that he didn’t pitch at least 10 innings in a big league season. Instead, the southpaw spent the year with the Diamondbacks’ Triple-A affiliate, where he pitched to a 5.04 ERA with 36 strikeouts against 28 walks in 44 innings of relief. Suffice it to say, the 2019 campaign wasn’t one of the southpaw’s best.

That said, Rzepczynski has a generally solid track record at the big league level. He’s compiled a 3.89 ERA and near-identical 3.88 FIP in 434 2/3 MLB frames — including a quality run from 2011-17 that saw him log a 3.61 earned run average (3.59 FIP) in 299 1/3 innings. It’s been two years since his last effective campaign at the MLB level, but there’s little harm in taking a speculative spring look to see a rebound appears possible.

Major League Baseball’s recent rule changes — the three-batter minimum for pitches, specifically — won’t do any favors for the man perhaps more commonly known as “Scrabble.” Rzepczynski has generally been used in a specialized left-on-left role throughout his career. Lefty hitters have mustered only a dismal .227/.296/.305 slash against him in 857 trips to the plate, but righties have had far less difficulty, as evidenced by a .280/.385/.437 output in 1035 plate appearances.

Trent Thornton Reportedly Favorite For Jays' Final Rotation Spot

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  • Trent Thornton is the favorite to claim the final spot in the Blue Jays’ season-opening rotation, reports Scott Mitchell of TSN. The 26-year-old actually led the Jays in innings (154.1) last season, but the results weren’t in line with what one would want from a staff ace. He posted a 4.84 ERA with slightly worse than average strikeout (22.0%) and walk (9.0%) rates. This offseason, the front office went to work on bolstering that pitching staff. They signed Hyun-Jin Ryu and Tanner Roark to multi-year deals, brought back Matt Shoemaker, and acquired Chase Anderson in a trade with Milwaukee. Another offseason addition, Shun Yamaguchi, figures to be Thornton’s biggest competition for the #5 rotation spot. Because of his experience in relief in NPB, however, Yamaguchi seems more likely to open the season in the bullpen, Mitchell reports.
  • Seeing that new-look staff in action will be a bit more difficult for some Blue Jays’ fans. Beginning this season, live Jays’ games will be blacked out on MLB.tv throughout Canada, reports Andrew Stoeten of the Athletic. Instead, Canadian viewers will have to subscribe to Sportsnet NOW to stream games. A subscription to that platform also offers non-baseball programming but doesn’t come with the MLB.tv advantage of offering live access to every MLB game in real time. It’s surely frustrating news for a certain segment of the Canadian fan base.

Blue Jays’ Mark Shapiro On Hyun-Jin Ryu Signing

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Although they were then coming off a 67-win campaign and their third straight year without a playoff berth, the Blue Jays still managed to reel in one of the offseason’s highest-ranked free agents. They added former Dodgers southpaw Hyun-Jin Ryu on a four-year, $80MM contract – the largest deal they’ve awarded since Mark Shapiro became team president late in the 2015 season. Shapiro discussed the Ryu signing, among other topics, with Shi Davidi of Sportsnet.

Ryu was tremendous at times in Los Angeles, especially from 2018-19, and will now slot into the top of Toronto’s revamped rotation from the get-go. Still, the commitment the Blue Jays made to Ryu no doubt comes with its share of risk. The club is far from a sure thing to be an immediate contender, for one, so Ryu’s contributions early in the deal may not lead to a vast amount of team success. He’s also set to enter his age-33 season and has seldom been the picture of durability since debuting in 2013. Last year marked the first time since 2014 that Ryu threw more than 150 innings in a season.

The Blue Jays are obviously excited about having won the Ryu derby, but Shapiro acknowledged to Davidi that “time will tell the value return” on the pact. He continued: “Free-agent starting pitching in general is a high-risk market and we’re very aware of that. That’s why we’re so careful. You don’t pound your chest over signing someone. You have all your reasons for doing it, you know the risks going in. We identified the need and felt this was one of the best opportunities for us to get better and take a step.”

The Jays are hopeful Ryu will provide value in each year of the contract, but if most of it comes toward the beginning of it, “It’s certainly not ideal but it’s certainly not disastrous,” Shapiro said. He admitted that “contracts get more risky as a player ages, so you would expect to get more on the front side.”

Toronto’s cognizant that it took a chance in signing Ryu, but the fact that the team has so much young, inexpensive talent gave it the necessary “financial flexibility” to make that gamble. With Ryu on the roster, Shapiro’s all the more confident that the Blue Jays are “going to be good,” thanks in part to the “mass of talent” they’ve built up in recent years.

Exploring The Jays' Roster Battles

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  • The Blue Jays face some interesting decisions with their bench mix, as the Toronto Star’s Gregor Chisholm observes that slugger Rowdy Tellez might not make the Opening Day roster.  Since minor league signing Joe Panik “is almost a sure bet to be included on the roster” as a utilityman and outfielders Derek Fisher and Anthony Alford are both out of options, this trio might have the advantage over Tellez, who is defensively limited to only first base.  Tellez has shown some strong power (25 homers, .475 slugging percentage) over 482 MLB plate appearances, though is somewhat one-dimensional at the plate, as evidenced by his .241 career average and .299 OBP.  Fisher and Alford will both need to perform well this spring to block Tellez, however, and Chisholm notes that Brandon Drury also isn’t a lock for the roster, as the Blue Jays could opt to cut Drury and just go with Panik as the primary utility player.  Since Drury was an arbitration-eligible player, releasing him before Opening Day would leave the Jays on the hook for just a small portion of his $2.05MM salary.  If Drury was released, Chisholm speculates Toronto could potentially put those savings towards signing another veteran player who might become available as teams trim their rosters in advance of the season opener.

Tony Fernandez Passes Away

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Former five-time All-Star Tony Fernandez passed away Saturday night at age 57, according to Hector Gomez of Deportivo Z 101 (Twitter link).  Fernandez suffered a brain stroke while he was already in hospital receiving treatment for complications from kidney disease, and Fernandez was placed in an induced coma two weeks ago.

Fernandez appeared in part of 17 Major League seasons from 1983-2001, suiting up for seven different teams but making his biggest impact with the Blue Jays.  Over four separate stints with Toronto, Fernandez played 1450 of his 2158 MLB games in a Jays uniform, and is the franchise’s all-time leader in games played, hits (1583), singles (1160), triples (72), and bWAR (37.5).  A switch-hitting offensive contributor who hit .288/.347/.399 over 8793 career plate appearances, Fernandez was even more highly regarded for his defense, winning four consecutive Gold Gloves at shortstop between 1986-89.

Though Fernandez was dealt to the Padres along with Fred McGriff in the blockbuster December 1990 trade that brought Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter to Toronto, Fernandez returned to the Jays in time to help his old club capture its second consecutive World Series title.  The Jays re-acquired Fernandez in a June 1993 deal with the Mets, and the shortstop hit .306/.361/.442 in 390 regular season PA with the Jays in 1993, and then .333/.423/.381 over 26 plate appearances during the 1993 World Series.  Fernandez also posted a 1.022 OPS over 34 PA during the ALCS and World Series for the Indians in 1997, during the Tribe’s run to Game Seven against the eventual world champion Marlins.

The MLB Trade Rumors staff sends our condolences and best wishes to Fernandez’s family, friends, and many fans.

Randal Grichuk Likely To Start In Center Field For Blue Jays

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  • The Blue Jays are likely to enter 2020 with Randal Grichuk as their top option in center field, GM Ross Atkins confirmed (via Shi Davidi of Sportsnet). That’s not terribly surprising, as the always-sparse free agent market for center fielders has been almost completely picked over. Grichuk is coming off a disappointing 2019, the first season of a five-year extension he inked last April. Despite a career-high 31 home runs, he managed only a .232/.280/.457 line (90 wRC+) over 628 plate appearances. That at least seemed to open the door for an outside addition for the Jays, who have made some improvements around the roster this offseason. Between Grichuk’s right-handed pop and favorable Statcast ratings defensively, it seems he’s earned another opportunity to improve upon his lackluster plate discipline.
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