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Blue Jays Sign Craig Breslow To Minor League Deal

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Feb. 13: Breslow’s spring opt-out date is March 22, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today (Twitter links). He can also earn up to $700K worth of incentives if he makes the big league roster. The Blue Jays have formally announced the deal.

Feb. 12, 11:59am: Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet reports that Breslow would earn a $1.25MM base salary if he makes the team (Twitter link). He’d also have the opportunity to earn more through incentives and has an opt-out date near the end of Spring Training.

11:33am: The Blue Jays are in agreement with left-handed reliever Craig Breslow on a minor league contract, tweets Robert Murray of FanRag Sports. Breslow, who is represented by the Baratta Partners, will vie for a bullpen job in Major League Spring Training.

Toronto has been stockpiling bullpen options on minor league deals lately, as they’ve now added Breslow, John Axford (link) and Jake Petricka (link) in the past week alone. Toronto also added Al Alburquerque on a minors pact earlier this winter. The 37-year-old Breslow will give the Jays an option to compete alongside Aaron Loup, Matt Dermody, Tim Mayza and fellow non-roster pitcher Chad Girodo for a spot as a lefty in the ’pen.

Breslow opened the 2017 season with the Twins on the heels of a winter in which worked to alter his mechanics and lower his arm slot. He didn’t fare particularly well in Minnesota (5.23 ERA in 31 innings), although that was largely due to the fact that other injuries throughout the bullpen (and some short outings from the rotation) early in the season forced the Twins to use Breslow against right-handed opponents far more than would be preferable. Breslow faced twice as many righties as lefties in 2017, and they clobbered him at a .330/.393/.542 clip. However, lefties were utterly befuddled against Breslow, hitting just .196/.294/.286.

AL East Notes: Beltran, Rays, Yankees, Orioles

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Just-retired slugger Carlos Beltran turned down a front office role with the Yankees earlier this offseason, reports The Athletic’s Marc Carig (subscription link). Beltran says that only a managerial position would’ve dissuaded him from his plan to take at least a year off from the game after retiring as a player, but he would consider other roles in the future. Carig chronicles Beltran’s indoctrination to the business side of baseball, which began back in a 2003 arbitration hearing with the Royals. Now, Beltran draws praise from executives like Cashman and field staff like Astros manager A.J. Hinch, who both effused praise for Beltran’s baseball acumen and future in the game in interviews with Carig.

Elsewhere in the AL East…

  • Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times examines some of the many open questions facing the Rays as camp opens. He says the organization is still “working hard through the spring thaw” to work out trades that will draw down payroll. Interestingly, that could come through some kind of swap that includes not only a pitcher but also a more expensive position player, says Topkin, who suggests that Corey Dickerson or Denard Span could be moved along with righty Jake Odorizzi. That concept seemingly increases the variety of potential outcomes that one might imagine, though it doesn’t help provide much clarity to an overall market situation that remains largely unresolved as camps open.
  • The Orioles have discussed the possibility of a non-roster invitation to Spring Training for Pedro Alvarez, Michael Bourn, Colby Rasmus and Michael Saunders within the past week, according to Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun. It’s a bargain-hunter’s collection of names, considering the fact that higher-profile left-handed bats such as Logan Morrison, Carlos Gonzalez, Jon Jay and Jarrod Dyson remain available in free agency. (Morrison, of course, isn’t an outfielder at this point in his career, though the same is true of Alvarez.) The O’s have been interested in Rasmus and Saunders in prior offseasons, Encina notes, though it’s not clear what Rasmus’ plans are at present. The veteran outfielder stepped away from the game for personal reasons last July, and there hasn’t been much mention of him this winter.
  • While he still expects the Orioles to acquire at least one starter via trade or free agency, Dan Connolly of BaltimoreBaseball.com also indicates that he expects right-hander Mike Wright to get another opportunity to prove himself in the rotation in April. The 28-year-old Wright is out of minor league options, Connolly notes, adding that the Orioles do not want to give up on Wright despite a lack of results in the Majors. Wright has a paltry 5.86 ERA, 5.46 FIP and 5.16 xFIP in 144 2/3 big league innings, but he’s been considerably better in Triple-A, where he owns a lifetime 3.53 ERA in 389 2/3 frames — including a flat 3.00 ERA in 240 1/3 innings across the past three seasons.
  • Beyond all the other uncertainties permeating the game this spring, there are still a fair number of unresolved arbitration cases, as our 2018 MLB Arbitration Tracker shows. As Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet.ca notes on Twitter, Blue Jays righty Marcus Stroman had his hearing yesterday, though results aren’t yet known. Meanwhile, Orioles starter Kevin Gausman is still hoping to work something out rather than heading for a hearing tomorrow, as Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com tweets.

Minor MLB Transactions: 2/12/18

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Here are the day’s minor moves:

  • The Brewers announced the addition of outfielder Quintin Berry on a minor-league arrangement. And the team also re-signed right-hander Hiram Burgos to a minors deal, Chris Cotillo of SB Nation tweets. Berry, now 33, is chiefly known for late-season and postseason stints as pinch runner and defensive replacement, but he did earn a brief trip up to the majors last year with Milwaukee. The 30-year-old Burgos has still yet to play with another organization, though he has only received six total MLB outings with the Brewers, all of which came in 2013. He struggled to a 6.06 ERA in 62 1/3 total frames in the upper minors last year, but did still carry 9.2 K/9 against 2.9 BB/9.
  • Lefty Matt Tracy will join the Blue Jays on a minor-league pact, per Cotillo (via Twitter). Tracy, who came to the professional ranks as a 24th-round pick by the Yankees, has just one MLB appearance under his belt but will offer a swingman depth option. The 29-year-old spent last year with the Twins organization, working to a 4.71 ERA in 84 innings spread over three levels of the minors.

AL East Notes: Neander, Rays Stadium, Hicks, Jays

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Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times takes an interesting look at how Erik Neander came to land atop the Rays’ baseball operations department. Neander took an unusual path to his current position, with data providing his hook into the Tampa Bay baseball operations department — but only after a lot of hustle. At MLBTR, we often field emails and chat questions about how to break into the business; perhaps this article serves as something of a guide for what kind of effort it might take, even if you do have ability to go with the passion.

Here’s more from the AL East:

  • While Neander will do all he can to squeeze value out of limited payroll resources, the Rays’ ongoing stadium efforts remain critical to the organization’s long-term viability. On the heels of recent news that the club has settled on a preferred site, Topkin and others at the TB Times have compiled a comprehensive look at the current state of play surrounding the proposed site in Tampa Bay’s Ybor City. Those with interest in the subject will need to read the full post for its many details; suffice to say that a variety of challenges still lay ahead to convert this idea into reality.
  • Yankees outfielder Aaron Hicks says he’s coming to camp with sights set on winning a starting job in center, as Bryan Hoch of MLB.com reports. The 28-year-old unquestionably impressed in 2017, with a surprising .266/.372/.475 batting line and 15 home runs. Of course, that’s the first time the switch-hitter has posted above-average offensive production and he has still yet to top four hundred plate appearances (due to performance issues and, more recently, injuries) in a given season. Plus, the Yankees have to consider Jacoby Ellsbury, who isn’t likely to find time playing in the corners with Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton on hand along with Brett Gardner. It’s certainly still possible that the Yanks will clarify the roster logjam before the start of the season. If not, though, it seems reasonable to anticipate that Ellsbury will at least take a fair amount of time against right-handed pitchers. (While Ellsbury has long thrived against righties, Hicks has traditionally been better against southpaws.)
  • John Lott of The Athletic examines the seven recent PED suspensions doled out to Blue Jays Latin American farmhands in a subscription-only post. Of course, there are lots of difficult issues surrounding this subject, due in large part to the difficult incentive system facing these young players. In the case of the Toronto prospects, they were caught using the kinds of unsophisticated substances that MLB deputy commissioner Dan Halem says are easy to detect. Of course, this isn’t a problem facing only the Blue Jays. The Latin American signing and development system, which typically involves so-called buscones and very youthful players, has long been riddled with problems.

Blue Jays Sign John Axford To Minor League Deal

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Feb. 9: The Blue Jays have announced the signing.

Feb. 8, 8:54pm: Axford has indeed agreed to a minor league contract with an invite to Major League Spring Training, tweets Shi Davidi of Sportsnet.

7:46pm: The Blue Jays and free-agent right-hander John Axford are in agreement on a contract, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (via Twitter). The Canadian-born Axford is represented by the Beverly Hills Sports Council. Details of the arrangement aren’t yet clear, though given his rough 2017 season, it’s possible that Axford agreed to a minor league pact with a Spring Training invite.

Axford, 34, struggled with the A’s last season in the second year of a two-year, $10MM contract, pitching to a 6.43 ERA with a 21-to-17 K/BB ratio in 21 innings out of the Oakland ’pen before being designated for assignment and released. However, he’s a year removed from a solid 3.97 ERA with 8.2 K/9, 4.1 BB/9 and 0.82 HR/9 with a 54.2 percent ground-ball rate through 65 2/3 innings in 2016.

Those numbers are largely in line with the overall production that Axford posted from 2013-16 in 241 innings with the Brewers, Cardinals, Indians, Pirates, Rockies and A’s. Axford has long shown the ability to miss bats (career 10.2 K/9) but has also had some longstanding issues in finding the strike zone with regularity (4.6 BB/9). His penchant for racking up strikeouts has led to multiple stints as a closer, as he’s saved 144 games in the Majors, including a 2011 campaign in which he led the National League with 46 saves for Milwaukee.

[Related: Toronto Blue Jays depth chart]

If he ultimately joins the Toronto relief corps, Axford would add an experienced arm to a group that largely lacks a track record. Roberto Osuna, of course, has emerged as one of the game’s top young relievers, and southpaw Aaron Loup has more than five years of big league service time under his belt. But, right-hander Ryan Tepera is the only other reliever on the roster with more than two full years of big league service time.

Joe Biagini, Carlos Ramirez, Danny Barnes, Matt Dermody and Tim Mayza are all 40-man options, but Biagini is the most experienced of the bunch and has not yet established himself in the Majors after a rocky 2017 campaign (mostly spent in the rotation). The Jays do have some veteran options that’ll be in camp as non-roster invitees this spring, including Al Alburquerque and and Jake Petricka (who reportedly agreed to a minor league deal earlier today).

Blue Jays Reportedly Interested In Andrew Cashner

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The Blue Jays are showing “continued interest” in free-agent righty Andrew Cashner, tweets MLB.com’s Jon Morosi, though he’s one of several starters they’re eyeing. The Jays have a need for a fifth starter to round out their rotation, and Morosi suggests that they’re hoping to fill that vacancy on a one-year deal. It’s not a surprise to see the Jays (or any team, for that matter) preferring a one-year term on the free-agent market, but Cashner reportedly entered the offseason in hopes of securing a three-year pact.

It’s possible that the crawling pace of the offseason has lessened his demands to an extent, but there’s been no indication that Cashner is willing to jump on a one-year offer to date. The 31-year-old made 28 starts for the Rangers last season and posted a 3.40 ERA, albeit one that looks to be largely smoke and mirrors. Cashner’s 4.64 K/9 rate was the second-lowest in the Majors, and his 3.46 BB/9 rate was worse than the league average. Overall, his K%-BB% of just 3.1 percent was the worst of any qualified pitcher in baseball, leading fielding-independent metrics like xFIP (5.30) and SIERA (5.52) to paint an unflattering picture of his work.

The said, Cashner’s fastball averaged better than 93 mph, his 48.6 percent ground-ball rate was comfortably above the league average, and he demonstrated the home-run suppression skills he’s shown for much of his career despite a move to a hitter-friendly setting in Arlington (0.81 HR/9). Cashner did rely less on his four-seam fastball with the Ranges than he ever has in previous seasons, instead favoring more cutters/sinkers. Some clubs may believe that altering that pitch selection a bit could restore some his strikeout prowess.

The Blue Jays currently project to have Aaron Sanchez, Marcus Stroman, J.A. Happ and Marco Estrada in the top four spots of their rotation. Joe Biagini was their most frequent fifth starter in 2017, though he struggled in a move to the rotation after enjoying success as a reliever in his 2016 rookie season, when he was a Rule 5 pick. Prospect Ryan Borucki is close to big league ready and could conceivably step into the mix, though it stands to reason that the Jays would prefer to ease him into a big league job rather than throw him directly into the fire in the season’s first couple of weeks (without much of a veteran fallback option in place, should he struggle).

Blue Jays To Sign Jake Petricka

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The Blue Jays have agreed to a minor-league deal with righty Jake Petricka, according to Chris Cotillo of SB Nation (via Twitter). He’ll have the opportunity to earn a $1.3MM base salary with $500K in incentives if he can crack the MLB roster.

Petricka, 29, is a former second-rounder who has delivered good results at times in the majors. Between 2013 and 2015, he posted a 3.24 ERA with 6.1 K/9 and 3.8 BB/9 over 144 1/3 innings. Despite the middling strikeout and walk figures, Petricka allowed only five home runs in that span. With a mid-nineties sinker, he has traditionally delivered big groundball rates (61.5% career).

Unfortunately, injuries and performance lapses arose more recently. A hip procedure cost Petrickamost of 2016. And he managed only 25 2/3 innings last year, allowing twenty earned runs but also posting a 26:6 K/BB ratio. He ultimately underwent a nerve transposition and flexor tendon debridement procedure in October of 2017.

At the time of that surgery, it was estimated Petricka would need to lay off for at least three or four months. The White Sox ended up non-tendering him rather than working out an arbitration salary. (He projected to earn $1.1MM.) With just over four years of MLB service on his clock, Petricka could still be tendered a contract in the future.

Petricka’s current status isn’t fully clear, but in all likelihood he’ll be handled with some care as he works back to full health. Whether or not he’ll have a real shot at earning a MLB pen job in camp, Petricka could well represent an interesting option for the Jays at some point in the coming season.

AL East Notes: Pomeranz, Orioles, Blue Jays, Tanaka

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Red Sox lefty Drew Pomeranz is a year from the open market — a reality that comes with added concern when viewed against the backdrop of the current free-agent landscape — but he tells Rob Bradford of WEEI.com that he’s more focused on the upcoming season than anything else. “Obviously, I know I’m a free agent at the end of the year and I want to have a good year,” says Pomeranz. “…I’m just worried about picking up where I left off and kind of continuing to get better every year like I have every year of my career.” Pomeranz is no stranger to the business of baseball, having been traded four times in his young career as he struggled to establish himself as a quality big leaguer. Since coming to Boston, though, he’s pitched to a 3.68 ERA with 9.1 K/9 against 3.5 BB/9 in 242 1/3 innings. Pomeranz says his biggest goal in 2018 is to get quicker outs so that he can work deeper into games. Doing so would almost certainly allow him to establish a new career-high in innings pitched; Pomeranz tossed 170 innings in 2016 and a career-best 173 1/3 frames in 2017.

Elsewhere in the division…

  • While the Orioles have been in touch with the majority of free-agent starters available, they’re content to wait out the market for now to see if they can ultimately secure some rotation help on shorter-term deals, tweets ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick. Owner Peter Angelos is wary of locking in another four-year deal just months after Ubaldo Jimenez’s four-year, $50MM landmine is finally off the books, he adds. Crasnick lists Lance Lynn, Alex Cobb, Jason Vargas, Andrew Cashner and Chris Tillman as some of the many possibilities on whom the O’s have been keeping tabs.
  • Aledmys Diaz tells Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith that he informed the Cardinals early in the offseason that he’d prefer to be traded if the team couldn’t find more regular at-bats for him in St. Louis. The Cards obliged that wish, though the trade that sent Diaz to the Blue Jays doesn’t necessarily create an immediate path to regular playing time, either. Diaz, though, spent much of the 2017 season in the minors, and it seems certain that the Jays envision him as a big league piece to at least fill a reserve capacity. “It’ll be nice to look down the bench and see a little more firepower,” said manager John Gibbons of the additions of Diaz and Yangervis Solarte. Indeed, that duo should be a more productive pairing than Ryan Goins and Darwin Barney, each of whom signed minor league deals elsewhere this offseason. And, with a pair of injury question marks up the middle in the form of Troy Tulowitzki and Devon Travis, it’s certainly not difficult to see Diaz and Solarte both getting their fair share of reps in 2018 with Toronto.
  • Masahiro Tanaka again spoke about his decision to forgo his opt-out clause and return to the Yankees (link via Newsday’s Erik Boland). While Tanaka acknowledged that there were likely other possibilities for him in free agency, the righty doesn’t sound as if he ever gave serious consideration to testing the open market. “…[T]he important thing for me was to follow what my heart was saying, and that’s what I did,” said Tanaka. The right-hander, of course, now looks like he may have been well-served to remain with the Yankees, as nearly every starting pitcher that hit the open market this offseason remains unsigned, with a few exceptions (e.g. Tyler Chatwood, Jhoulys Chacin). “[Y]ou would never know it was going to turn into something like this,” said Tanaka of the stagnant market. Tanaka also spoke about his early struggles in 2017 and spoke about the disappointment over Shohei Ohtani’s decision to sign with the Angels, as well as his excitement to face his countryman down the line.

Quick Hits: Aardsma, Coke, Market Analysis

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Former MLB righty David Aardsma has announced on his podcast that he’s officially calling it quits as a ballplayer and joining the Blue Jays front office as coordinator of player development. The 36-year-old, a former first-round draft pick, last pitched in the majors in 2015 and spent some time at Triple-A in the following season with the Toronto organization. Over nine years with eight MLB organizations, Aardsma ran a 4.27 ERA over 337 frames. He’ll surely be remembered best for a two-year run with the Mariners in which he closed out 69 games and maintained a 2.90 ERA. MLBTR — which once hosted Aardsma on its own podcast — wishes him the very best in his new pursuit.

Here are a few more stray notes from around the game:

  • Lefty Phil Coke is hoping to reinvent himself as a knuckle-baller, according to Chris Cotillo of SB Nation (via Twitter). The 35-year-old, a nine-year MLB veteran, spent some time last year with Japan’s Orix Buffaloes but has had a tough time gaining traction in recent seasons. Coke had long utilized a varied arsenal and shown good velocity from the left side, so he ought to have some interesting potential accompanying tools to go with his new knuckler.
  • Of course, looking at the state of the market is just not possible without examining the general lack of action. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic again offers some worthwhile perspective in a subscription piece, chiding both the player and team sides for “bickering” over pace-of-play discussions when what’s needed is a joint commitment to evolving the game — and, no doubt, an effort to deal with the dangerous rise in labor tension. ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick, meanwhile, asks whether certain unsigned free agents could actually decide to open their own spring camp. Different players and agents have different takes on the concept; what’s most notable, perhaps, is the fact that it’s even a topic of conversation at all.
  • Even if there’s a resolution to the current impasse, it seems there’ll likely be a broader, ongoing conversation about where the game of baseball is headed when it comes to player-team relations. Baseball America’s J.J. Cooper argues that the current rules regime creates skewed incentives that do not reward teams that try to contend but come up a bit short. He discusses a few possible ideas, promoting in particular a “tank tax” that docks organizations in the draft if they put together consecutive sub-70-win campaigns. Cooper suggests this kind of mechanism could function similarly to the soccer approach of relegation. Ultimately, the MLBPA may need to begin considering more drastic measures, Nathaniel Grow writes at Fangraphs. He raises the possibility that the union could strategically disband to open the door to an antitrust lawsuit. While that threat might be utilized first as a means to gain leverage in future CBA talks, Grow explains that it could be a realistic option at some point.
  • Those interested in getting the full range of opinions on top prospects from around the game will want to check out the latest top-100 lists. The Baseball Prospectus staff and Fangraphs’ Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel have graded out the game’s best pre-MLB players from their perspectives.

Ross Atkins On Josh Donaldson, Free Agency

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There may not have been any formal extension negotiations between the Blue Jays and Josh Donaldson, but that doesn’t mean the Jays haven’t been exploring the possibility internally. To the contrary, GM Ross Atkins said at a recent PitchTalks event that the Blue Jays have placed their own valuation on Donaldson and suggested that the team has a good idea of how far it’d go in an effort to extend the former AL MVP (subscription link via The Athletic’s John Lott).

“We do have that number,” said Atkins during his presentation. “We have come up with a clear walkaway that we would be willing to commit to him to extend (the contract) for him to remain a Blue Jay probably for the rest of his career.”

Unsurprisingly, Atkins didn’t delve into the specifics of what that number would entail. Donaldson said recently that to his knowledge, the Blue Jays hadn’t engaged his agents at MVP Sports in extension talks, though one can imagine that the team will explore that possibility in the coming weeks once Spring Training gets underway. That’s typically the timeframe for players and clubs to negotiate extensions, though Donaldson could be one of the tougher players to pry away from free agency.

The 32-year-old got off to a slow start in 2017 but finished with an absurd .302/.410/.698 slash and 22 homers over his final 227 plate appearances, and he’s been on the short list of the AL’s best players for the past half decade. While Donaldson will hit the open market at an older age than most premier free agents, he’d still be primed for a massive contract in free agency, assuming a typically excellent year at the plate and in the field.

On a related note, Atkins also addressed the excruciatingly slow free-agent market, noting that teams appear to be less inclined than ever to push past their comfort levels to win the bidding on a player, calling it “good business to walk away and not [exceed] your value.” Atkins also touched on the fact that free agency tends to reward older players, noting that the “aging curve has been potentially overcompensated in the past.” Atkins did note that the Jays value experience (their signing of Curtis Granderson certainly seems to back that up). While other teams throughout the league surely do as well, it does seem as though the dollar amount associated with that value has declined in precipitous fashion.

How highly the Jays value the experience of Donaldson (financially speaking, that is) and how they’ll proceed with him will continue to be a pressing topic in Toronto for the next six months or more. If no long-term pact is worked out this spring, the question will shift from one of signing Donaldson long term to one of whether the Jays should trade the well-rounded slugger this summer.

Should the team finds itself buried in the AL East, that’ll be a fairly easy question, but if not, the Jays could face the unenviable task of balancing the short-term benefit of chasing down a Wild Card spot with the long-term benefit of bolstering their farm system with a franchise-altering trade of their best player. The Jays would have the option of making a qualifying offer to Donaldson and recouping some value in the 2019 draft, of course, but they’d almost certainly be able to top that value on the summer trade market.

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