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Rays To Sign Ryan Sherriff

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The Rays have struck an agreement on a deal with southpaw Ryan Sherriff, according to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (via Twitter). It’s a minor-league pact, per the report.

Sherriff, 28, was cut loose by the Cardinals late in the 2018 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery. Given that the procedure occurred in early June, it’s certainly possible — but by no means assured — that he’ll be ready to go at some point in the coming campaign.

While the Rays no doubt will hope that Sherriff’s left elbow responds to his rehab efforts in a timely manner, this agreement is surely aimed primarily at the future. The former 28th-round draft pick will remain controllable beyond the present campaign at the league minimum salary.

Sherriff had turned in an intriguing debut showing in 2017, when he threw 14 1/3 innings of 3.14 ERA ball. That was a short sample, to be sure, but he carried the hefty groundball numbers he had shown in the upper minors into the majors while getting some swings and misses (10.1% SwStr) and maintaining a strong 15:4 K/BB ratio.

Unfortunately, Sherriff hasn’t yet had the chance to test himself over a full campaign in the majors. He ended up struggling on the hill and only throwing ten total innings (split between the majors and Triple-A) in 2018, before ending his season on the operating table.

Marlins Acquire International Pool Money From Astros

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12:49pm: The Marlins added $500K in spending capacity to their coffers in today’s swap, per MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand (via Twitter).

11:04am: The Marlins and Astros have officially struck a deal that will send yet more international bonus pool availability to the Miami organization, as MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro first reported (via Twitter). Houston will receive a pair of prospects — outfielder Adonis Giron and lefty Brayan De Paula — in the swap.

It is not yet known how much spending capacity will flow to the Marlins in this deal. Per another Frisaro tweet, though, the Fish believe they’ve now got deeper pockets to work with than do the Orioles — the other primary competitor for the top international amateur talent left for bidding in the current signing period.

At last glance, the Marlins had moved past $6MM in pool space after yet another swap. The club needed to pick up over $2MM in funds to exceed the $6.7MM the Orioles were believed to be working with. Bonus pool availability — which sets a hard cap on spending — can only be dealt in $250K increments. Teams are limited to adding 75% of their starting allocation.

The remaining international market is widely said to offer three top prizes, all of whom evidently are objects of the Marlins’ and Orioles’ affections. Victor Victor Mesa is generally viewed as the best player available, with his younger brother Victor Mesa Jr. and righty Sandy Gaston also graded as intriguing young assets. Each member of this trio of Cubans is subject to international spending limitations.

Much like the other teams that have struck deals of late with the Marlins — the Nationals and Reds — the Astros weren’t able to put their existing international pool space to full use. By virtue of prior spending penalties, imposed under the prior rules regime, the Houston organization was barred from spending more than #400K on any given player.

The ’Stros, then, decided instead to use that availability to pick up a pair of youthful players — recent international signees themselves. The 17-year-old Giron spent the year with the Marlins’ Dominican Summer League entrant, slashing .255/.331/.362 in 275 plate appearances. He previously inked for $350K, with a reputedly intriguing bat. De Paula, 19, also appeared on the DSL roster for a second consecutive year, spinning 44 1/3 innings of 2.23 ERA ball with 9.1 K/9 against 2.4 BB/9.

Athletics Outright Hatcher, Smolinski, Kiekhefer

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5:29pm: Kiekhefer has indeed elected free agency, MLBTR has learned.

2:37pm: The A’s have now announced that both Smolinski and Kiekhefer were outrighted, and the organization further announced that right-hander Chris Hatcher has been outrighted off the 40-man after clearing waivers as well.

Hatcher, 34 in January, appeared in 34 games and pitched to a 4.95 ERA in 36 1/3 innings for Oakland this past season, averaging 7.4 K/9, 4.2 BB/9, 1.73 HR/9 and a 42 percent ground-ball rate along the way. Hatcher’s average fastball velocity (93.6 mph) and swinging-strike rate (7.9 percent) have plummeted from their 2015 peaks (96 mph, 12.6 percent, respectively). He’s struggled in each of the past three seasons and would’ve been arbitration-eligible, with a projected $2.4MM salary.

12:37pm: Outfielder Jake Smolinski and left-hander Dean Kiekhefer have both been outrighted off the Athletics’ 40-man roster after clearing waivers, per the MLB.com transactions page. Smolinski has already elected free agency, I’m told, and it seems likely that Kiekhefer will do so as well, as is commonplace in these scenarios.

Smolinski, 30 in February, has seen limited action with Oakland over the past two seasons after logging a career-high 319 plate appearances in 2016. The former second-rounder (Nationals, 2007) mashed at a .278/.372/.548 clip in Triple-A this season but hit just .128/.171/.205 in a tiny sample of 41 plate appearances. (His season was cut short by a blood clot in his left calf.) In parts of four seasons with the Oakland organization, Smolinski is a .227/.287/.357 with a dozen homers, 14 doubles and five triples in a combined 507 plate appearances.

That production isn’t particularly eye-catching, but the right-handed-hitting Smolinski has been a menace in platoon settings, hitting .282/.351/.473 against left-handers to this point in his career. Defensively, Smolinski has experience at all three outfield positions and has played anywhere from average to slightly above-average defense, per Defensive Runs Saved and Ultimate Zone Rating. He’d been arbitration-eligible for the A’s, albeit with a modest projection of an $800K salary, per MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz.

As for Kiekhefer, the 29-year-old southpaw pitched just two innings for the A’s in 2018 but enjoyed a strong minor league campaign between the Reds and A’s organizations. In 58 1/3 minor league frames, Kiekhefer posted a 3.39 ERA with a terrific 51-to-8 K/BB ratio and above-average ground-ball tendencies. Left-handed opponents posted a .224/.263/.346 slash against him between the Majors and minors this season.

Kiekhefer’s big league experience is limited to 24 innings of 6.38 ERA ball between St. Louis (in 2016) and Oakland, but he’s turned in 204 innings of 3.03 ERA ball with 7.0 K/9 against 1.7 BB/9 in parts of five seasons at the Triple-A level. Given that track record, he should have little difficulty finding interest as a minor league free agent this offseason.

Marlins Outright Six Players

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The Marlins announced Friday that right-handers Tyler Cloyd, James Needy and Javy Guerra, left-hander Chris O’Grady, infielder Christopher Bostick and outfielder Rafael Ortega have all been outrighted off the 40-man roster after clearing waivers (O’Grady was first reinstated from the 60-day DL).

Cloyd, 31, allowed 17 runs in 17 2/3 innings for the Fish in his largest slate of big league work since the 2013 campaign with the Phillies. The 32-year-old Guerra (33 on Halloween) was unable to repeat the success he had with the 2017 Marlins, as he was clobbered for a 5.55 ERA in 35 2/3 innings (albeit with a more encouraging 30-to-12 K/BB ratio). O’Grady pitched just seven innings in his second season with the Fish and has a 4.73 ERA with 38 strikeouts against 22 walks in 40 Major League innings. Needy, meanwhile, did not pitch in 2018 after a solid 2017 campaign and also missed the 2016 season due to injury.

As for the position players, the 25-year-old Bostick was acquired from the Pirates for cash in August but saw just 16 plate appearances in the Majors. He’s a .256/.360/.326 hitter in a tiny sample of 50 plate appearances as a big leaguer and a .275/.337/.391 hitter in 1189 Triple-A plate appearances. Ortega, 27, logged 143 plate appearances with the Marlins this season and batted .233/.287/.271. Like Bostick, he has limited MLB experience but a solid track record in Triple-A (.299/.368/.423).

Twins Outright Gregorio Petit

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The Twins have outrighted infielder Gregorio Petit off the 40-man roster, per the Triple-A International League transactions page. He’ll likely become a free agent and seek another minor league deal this winter.

Petit, 33, batted .246/.313/.279 with a pair of doubles and three steals in two stints with Minnesota this season, appearing in 26 games and tallying 67 trips to the plate. That marked his sixth season of big league experience, having previously appeared with the A’s, Angels, Astros and Yankees. In all, Petit is a career .249/.294/.343 hitter in 493 Major League plate appearances and a .267/.316/.366 hitter in an even 3700 Triple-A plate appearances. Most of his career has been spent as a shortstop, though he has over 2000 professional innings at second base and nearly 1500 innings at third base as well.

Cardinals Re-Sign Adam Wainwright

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2:18pm: Wainwright’s contract includes incentives based on both starting and relieving, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports (on Twitter). The contract’s base salary remains unknown.

12:24pm: The Cardinals announced Thursday that they’ve re-signed right-hander Adam Wainwright to a one-year contract for the 2019 season. Wainwright, who recently turned 37, had been slated to hit free agency. He’s a client of Aegis Sports Management.

Adam Wainwright | Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports

The 2019 season will mark the 15th Major League season of Wainwright’s illustrious career — each of which has come as a member of the Cardinals. A two-time NL Cy Young runner up and four-time top-three finisher in that voting, Wainwright has now tied righty Bob Forsch for the third-most seasons as a Cardinals pitcher in team history.

This past season was an injury-plagued campaign for Wainwright, who pitched just 15 1/3 innings in April before hitting the disabled list due to elbow inflammation. He returned after a few weeks only to land on the disabled list after just 2 1/3 innings. That second DL stint, which was also initially due to elbow inflammation lasted nearly four months.

Once healthy enough to return to the mound, Wainwright reeled off 17 shutout innings on a minor league rehab assignment and returned to the Cards to make four starts in September. He was tagged for four runs in three of those four starts and turned in an unsightly 4.84 ERA in 22 1/3 innings, but he also notched an impressive 25-to-4 K/BB ratio in that time and saw his fastball jump back up to the same levels at which it sat in 2016-17.

The question for St. Louis now is one of just how Wainwright will factor into the 2019 staff. The Cards weren’t lacking rotation options even without Wainwright, with Carlos Martinez, Jack Flaherty, Miles Mikolas, Michael Wacha, Alex Reyes (if healthy), Luke Weaver, Dakota Hudson, John Gant, Daniel Poncedeleon and Austin Gomber all on the roster. It’s not clear that he’ll be promised a rotation spot at this point, but perhaps a return to the bullpen shouldn’t be entirely discounted. The Cardinals’ relief corps was somewhat jumbled late in the season after a massive overhaul prior to the non-waiver trade deadline in which Greg Holland, Sam Tuivailala and Tyler Lyons were all sent packing.

Bud Norris, who spent much of the season closing in St. Louis before ceding that role to Martinez in the latter’s return from the disabled list, is a free agent and isn’t any sort of lock to return. August addition Tyson Ross is bound for the open market, too. Meanwhile, 2017-18 offseason pickups Luke Gregerson (two-year, $11MM free-agent deal) and Dominic Leone (acquired from the Blue Jays for Randal Grichuk) combined for just 36 2/3 innings due to injury.

The 2018 season wasn’t all bad for the Cards in terms of bullpen developments, though. Flamethrowing young righty Jordan Hicks arrived on the scene and established himself as a potential long-term piece, while righty John Brebbia somewhat quietly turned in an excellent sophomore season. Wainwright could certainly be penciled in to join that pair, along with some of the rotation candidates who don’t ultimately secure starting jobs, though perhaps the team will simply wait until Spring Training to see how the staff comes together. The Cards, after all, figure to have a busy offseason ahead of them as they look to rework a flawed roster, and it’s possible that some of those younger pitching options could land elsewhere via the trade market.

Regardless of his role, Wainwright will return to serve as a leader on a staff of considerably younger arms, and his new contract will give him one more year with Yadier Molina — one of the most iconic pairings in franchise history.

Padres Release Jose Torres

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Oct. 10: The Padres released Torres after he unsurprisingly cleared waivers earlier this morning, MLBTR has learned.

Oct. 4: The Padres have designated left-hander Jose Torres for assignment, as per MLB.com’s official transactions listing.  Torres’ roster status had to be addressed once his 100-game suspension under the MLB/MLBPA joint domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse policy was up at season’s end.

Torres didn’t pitch in 2018 after he was charged with multiple criminal offenses during the offseason, stemming from a domestic disturbance incident where Torres was accused of pointing a gun at a woman with whom he was involved in a domestic relationship.  Torres’ charges included assault with a deadly weapon, intimidation, and criminal damage, as well as a charge for possession of marijuana.  He reportedly plead guilty to those charges in March. The Padres placed Torres on their restricted list in February, and Major League Baseball issued Torres with the 100-game suspension in June.

Torres, 25, made his big league debut in 2016 and then posted a 4.21 ERA, 8.3 K/9, and 3.94 K/BB rate over 68 1/3 innings in 2017.  With the Padres facing a 40-man roster crunch this winter as some of their best prospects become eligible for the Rule 5 draft, it isn’t surprising that Torres would be DFA’d rather than restored to the 40-man.  Torres could be outrighted to the minors if isn’t claimed or acquired during his 10-day DFA period, or it’s possible the Padres could simply release him altogether given the severity of his off-the-field situation.

Reds Claim Juan Graterol

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The Reds announced Wednesday that they’ve claimed catcher Juan Graterol off waivers from the Twins after he’d been placed on outright waivers. Cincinnati already had a pair of open 40-man roster spots, so not corresponding move is necessary.

Graterol, 29, only appeared in three games with the Twins after having his contract selected in late September. He’d previously appeared in 58 games at the Major League level with the Angels organization and is a lifetime .217/.227/.274 hitter in 111 plate appearances as a big leaguer. He’s notched a more respectable .289/.316/.346 slash in 572 plate appearances at the Triple-A level, but Graterol is known more as a defensive-minded backstop than a threat at the plate. He’s halted 38 percent of stolen-bases attempts against him in parts of 13 minor league seasons and thrown out 12 of 36 potential base thieves in the Majors (33 percent). He’s also routinely posted average or better framing numbers, per Baseball Prospectus.

Despite his shortcomings at the plate, Graterol’s defensive capabilities have made him a popular target on the waiver wire in the past. In the 2016-17 offseason, for instance, he went from the Angels, to the Reds, to the Diamondbacks, back to the Angels and then to the Blue Jays via waiver claim in a span of two months. After opening the season in the Jays organization, he was then flipped back to the Angels in a minor trade. Graterol still has a minor league option remaining beyond the 2018 season, so if he survives the winter on a 40-man roster (be it with the Reds or another organization), his team in Spring Training will be able to send him to the minors without first exposing him to waivers.

Diamondbacks Outright Patrick Kivlehan

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The Diamondbacks announced today that they have outrighted outfielder Patrick Kivlehan to Triple-A. Presumably, then, he has already cleared waivers.

Kivlehan, 28, has the right to reject the assignment in favor of free agency. He was previously outrighted from the Reds’ 40-man roster after the 2017 season.

Arizona added Kivlehan in a late-season swap with the Mets. He helped the Snakes fill out their roster down the stretch but only received 14 plate appearances in nine games.

All told, Kivlehan is a .208/.302/.401 hitter in his 242 career MLB plate appearances, most of which came in 2017 with Cincinnati. Over parts of three seasons at Triple-A, the former fourth-rounder carries a .269/.325/.471 slash with 54 home runs in 1,352 plate appearances.

Nationals Acquire Kyle Barraclough

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The Nationals announced that they have acquired reliever Kyle Barraclough in a trade with the Marlins. $1MM of international bonus availability will head to Miami in the swap, Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald reports (via Twitter).

This transaction comes as a surprise, though the timing may well be explained by the Marlins’ well-known efforts to land top Cuban prospect Victor Victor Mesa. This’ll pad the team’s bonus coffers as it pursues Mesa — also a reputed target of the Orioles — and other talented amateur players who hail from outside of North America.

For the Nats, meanwhile, the move slots in a high-powered relief arm at a palatable price. The club was barred from spending more than $300K on the current international market regardless. And Barraclough projects to earn only $1.9MM in his first trip through arbitration.

Of course, there’s a reason that Barraclough was available for a return that doesn’t really sting his new club. The 28-year-old continued to show big velocity and swing-and-miss stuff in 2018 — he owns a career rate of 11.5 strikeouts per nine — but he continued to deal with major control problems and his results plummeted over the course of the season.

Indeed, after he held 170 opposing hitters to a putrid .126/.254/.217 slash to open the season, the next 75 to step in the box against Barraclough battered him to the tune of a .367/.486/.667 batting line. It’s hard to know just what went wrong, though some release-point issues seem to correlate with changes in the movement of his arsenal. This all occurred in the same general mid-season timeframe as Barraclough’s dip in effectiveness and trip to the DL for a shoulder impingement.

For the Nats, then, this move injects a rather volatile piece into the bullpen. There’s certainly some upside, though; indeed, Barraclough has delivered 218 2/3 innings of 3.21 ERA ball in his career despite the fact that he has consistently issued more than five free passes per nine innings. If he pans out, he’ll also be controllable for two additional seasons.

Surely, the Marlins hoped not long ago that they’d be able to get more for a controllable power arm with high-leverage experience. Unfortunately, though, they ultimately decided to cash him in at a moment when there was an opportunity to take a more future-oriented risk. In some regards, that’s not so different from the reasoning that brought Barraclough to Miami in the first place, when he was picked up in a mid-season deal that sent then-struggling closer Steve Cishek to the Cardinals.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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