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Astros Re-Sign Michael Brantley

By Connor Byrne | January 25, 2021 at 5:35pm CDT

JAN 25: The Astros have announced the deal, per Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle (via Twitter).

JAN 21: The Astros have reached a two-year, $32MM agreement with free-agent outfielder Michael Brantley, Mark Berman of Fox 26 reports. Brantley is a client of Excel Sports Management. It’s a done deal, Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweets.

That Brantley is returning to Houston is stunning, as just hours ago it appeared he would join friend and former Astros outfielder George Springer in Toronto. However, in the wake of reports suggesting Brantley would head north, a Toronto official shot down the notion that the club had a deal with him. The Blue Jays did indeed have interest in the 33-year-old Brantley, but they couldn’t close the deal for reasons that aren’t yet known. As a result, it appears Brantley will spend a third consecutive season with the Astros.

This is the second straight two-year, $32MM contract Brantley, formerly with Cleveland, has inked with Houston. The previous deal worked out for both sides, as Brantley earned his fourth All-Star nod in 2019 and has combined for a stellar .309/.370/.497 line with 27 home runs over 824 plate appearances during his run with the Astros. Thanks to his continued success, MLBTR ranked Brantley as the game’s 13th-best free agent at the beginning of the offseason and predicted he would land a two-year, $28MM pact.

With Brantley staying in Houston, the team has addressed a key need in its outfield, where it opened the offseason with major questions. The Astros were at risk of losing all of Brantley, Springer and Josh Reddick on the open market (Reddick is still a free agent). Now, though, they have two corner spots spoken for with Brantley and Kyle Tucker. It’s not yet clear who will replace Springer in center, and it’s certainly worth noting that Brantley may not be an optimal solution as an everyday outfielder anymore. Brantley has dealt with serious injuries in the past, and he missed time last year with a quad issue. When healthy, Brantley appeared in left field in just 19 of 46 games, spending the rest of his season at designated hitter. That spot won’t be available to Brantley on a regular basis in 2021 if offensive standout Yordan Alvarez returns to health after undergoing surgeries on both knees last August.

Losing out on Brantley may be a significant disappointment for the Blue Jays, but they’re not devoid of talent in the outfield and at DH. Springer, Teoscar Hernandez, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Randal Grichuk give the team a strong outfield quartet on paper, though adding Brantley obviously would have made the Jays even more formidable after they earned a playoff berth in 2020.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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Houston Astros Newsstand Transactions Michael Brantley

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Pirates Sign Joe Hudson To Minor League Deal

By Steve Adams | January 25, 2021 at 2:57pm CDT

The Pirates announced Monday that they’ve signed catcher Joe Hudson to a minor league contract and invited him to Major League Spring Training.

Hudson, 29, spent the 2020 season with the Mariners and appeared in nine big league games, going 3-for-17 with a pair of walks and five strikeouts in 20 trips to the plate. That marked Hudson’s third straight season with at least a taste of the Major Leagues, although both the nine games and 20 plate appearances were career-highs for the journeyman backstop. Overall, he’s a .167/.219/.200 hitter in a minuscule sample of 33 plate appearances.

Beyond his limited big league time, Hudson has logged 102 games at the Triple-A level, batting .249/.323/.411 with 13 homers, 14 doubles and a triple in 383 plate appearances. He’s thwarted a whopping 43 percent of the 505 stolen base attempts against him in the minors since being drafted by the Reds in the sixth round back in 2012, and Baseball Prospectus gives him generally strong marks both in terms of pitch framing and pitch blocking.

Jacob Stallings and Michael Perez are the only two catchers on Pittsburgh’s 40-man roster at the moment, and they lack an MLB-ready prospect behind the dish. Hudson joins fellow non-roster invitee Andrew Susac and 2017 fourth-rounder Jason Delay as depth options for the Bucs who could see action in Triple-A. Delay hasn’t played above Double-A yet and struggled there in 2019, hitting .234/.286/.398 in 67 games.

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Pittsburgh Pirates Transactions Joe Hudson

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Yankees Trade Adam Ottavino To Red Sox

By Steve Adams | January 25, 2021 at 1:15pm CDT

1:15pm: The teams have announced the trade.

11:45am: In an ultra-rare swap between AL East rivals, the Yankees have reportedly traded right-hander Adam Ottavino to the Red Sox in exchange for cash or a player to be named later. Boston will receive Ottavino and minor league right-hander Frank German from the Yankees in a move that amounts to a salary dump for the Yanks and the purchase of pitching prospect and a bullpen rebound candidate for the Red Sox.

Adam Ottavino | Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

After acquiring Jameson Taillon from the Pirates and agreeing to terms with DJ LeMahieu and Corey Kluber, the Yankees found themselves with roughly one million dollars separating them from the tax threshold, per Roster Resource’s Jason Martinez. Ottavino came with a $9MM luxury hit by virtue of the three-year, $27MM free-agent deal he signed two years ago, and the Yankees will now shave the bulk of that sum from their luxury obligations. ESPN’s Buster Olney reports that they’re sending $850K to the Red Sox as part of the deal, so the Yankees are freeing up $8.15MM of luxury breathing room.

That space will prove vital, given ownership’s apparent mandate that the front office stay under the tax threshold. The Yankees have recently spoken to Brett Gardner’s camp about a reunion, and the club could yet be in the hunt for affordable rotation depth even after adding Kluber and Taillon. Both are coming off injury-ruined 2020 seasons, after all, and the rest of the team’s rotation comes with similar workload concerns.

The trade between the two teams is the first in six and a half years, when they swapped Stephen Drew and Kelly Johnson in 2014. MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand points out that this is only the second trade that Yankees GM Brian Cashman has ever made with his organization’s top rival.

While finances are the clear driving factor in this trade, it’s unlikely the Yankees would’ve made the move had Ottavino not struggled through a dismal showing in last year’s shortened season. The 35-year-old appeared in 24 games but totaled just 18 1/3 innings of work, yielding a dozen runs on 20 hits and nine walks with 25 punchouts in that time. Ottavino’s 5.89 ERA was his highest since debuting as a rookie with the Cardinals back in 2010, although fielding-independent metrics were more bullish on his work (3.52 FIP, 3.62 SIERA).

Control has never been a strong point for Ottavino, but he dropped his walk rate from 13.8 percent in 2017-19 to 10.6 percent last year. It’s easy to call his ERA a result of a sky-high .375 average on ball in play, but Ottavino’s struggles appeared to be more than a function of simple bad luck. In spite of his improved control, the right-hander’s strikeout rate dipped a bit (31.5 percent to 29.4 percent), and Ottavino yielded hard contact at a career-high rate (90.6 mph average exit velocity; 50 percent hard-hit rate). Ottavino was a high-quality reliever as recently as 2018-19 between the Rockies and Yankees, however, when he logged a combined 2.19 ERA and 33.8 percent strikeout rate through 144 innings of work.

Boston surely hopes that Ottavino will return to form, but the Sox are also using available payroll flexibility to add a pitcher who isn’t viewed as being too far from MLB-ready. The 23-year-old German was a fourth-round pick out of college and a late riser on draft boards in 2018, as Eric Longenhagen wrote last year at FanGraphs. German added muscle to a projectable frame between his junior and senior years of college and saw his velocity spike late in the 2018 NCAA season. He’s continued to add velocity in pro ball, per Longenhagen, though there are concerns about his secondary offerings. MLB.com previously ranked German 24th among Yankees prospects, so he’ll settle somewhere into the middle tiers of the Red Sox’ rankings now.

In many ways underscores, this unexpected trade speaks to how both clubs view Boston’s chances of competing in 2021. If the Red Sox genuinely expected to compete for a division title, would they help the Yankees by giving them further payroll space to operate underneath the tax threshold? And if the Yankees viewed the Red Sox as a threat, would they risk sending a talented reliever — albeit one in need of a rebound — to their nemesis? The optics of a revitalized Ottavino playing a key role in a Red Sox bullpen that marches to the postseason would be brutal for the Yankees.

That’s not to write off the Red Sox entirely, of course. There’s still a very talented core group of players in Boston, but the team’s chances of contending in 2021 are largely dependent on a number of unknown elements breaking their way. The Sox don’t yet know how Chris Sale will look in his return from Tommy John surgery, for instance, nor are they certain what they can expect from Eduardo Rodriguez after he missed the 2020 season due to Covid-19 and a subsequent myocarditis diagnosis. Key lineup pieces like J.D. Martinez and Andrew Benintendi are in search of their own rebounds after downturns in 2020, and the Sox lack proven options at first base, in the back of the rotation and the back of the bullpen. Ottavino merely adds another question mark to that lengthy list.

Lindsey Adler of The Athletic first reported (via Twitter) that Ottavino had been traded to Boston. The New York Post’s Joel Sherman added details on the other elements of the swap.

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Boston Red Sox New York Yankees Newsstand Transactions Adam Ottavino Frank German

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Yankees Acquire Jameson Taillon

By Mark Polishuk | January 24, 2021 at 10:58pm CDT

12:49PM: The trade has been officially announced by both teams.

11:35AM: The Yankees have worked out a deal to acquire right-hander Jameson Taillon, Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.  The Pirates will receive four prospects in return.  ESPN.com’s Jeff Passan (Twitter link) reports that the minor leaguers in question are right-handers Miguel Yajure and Roansy Contreras, infielder Maikol Escotto and outfielder Canaan Smith.

Multiple reports broke yesterday that a Taillon trade was nearing completion, with the Yankees emerging as the favorites to land the 29-year-old.  According to Mackey, “at least three clubs” submitted offers for Taillon, but it was indeed New York who eventually landed the right-hander.

Jameson TaillonTaillon joins a Yankees rotation that is headlined by Gerrit Cole, and otherwise has a lot of upside but an equal number of question marks.  Corey Kluber has two AL Cy Young Awards on his resume but also has barely pitched in two seasons due to injuries, Luis Severino won’t return from Tommy John surgery rehab until midseason, Domingo German didn’t pitch in 2020 due to a domestic violence suspension, and the likes of Jordan Montgomery, Deivi Garcia, Clarke Schmidt or Michael King are lacking in MLB experience.

Taillon is himself not exactly a sure thing, as he didn’t pitch in 2020 (and threw only 37 1/3 innings in 2019) due to Tommy John surgery.  This was the second TJ procedure of Taillon’s career, following an earlier surgery during his days as a star prospect in Pittsburgh’s farm system.  While there is risk involved in the acquisition, the Yankees are betting that Taillon is healthy and can match or surpass the form he has showed over his 466 career innings.

Drafted second overall in 2010, Taillon has posted a 3.67 ERA, 21.5K%, and 15.5K-BB% over his Major League career.  While not a big strikeout pitcher, Taillon has a mid-90’s fastball, strong control, the ability to keep the ball on the ground (career 48.2% grounder rate) and does a good job of limiting hard contact.

The other important numbers from the Yankees’ perspective were two (as in the number of years of team control remaining over Taillon) and $2.25MM, which is what Taillon is set to earn in 2021.  The Yankees are known to be looking to stay under the $210MM luxury tax threshold and reset their tax penalties to zero, so there is added value for the team in acquiring a potential No. 3 or even a No. 2 starter at such a low financial cost.  According to Roster Resource’s projection, the Yankees are now less than a million dollars under the $210MM mark, so some creativity will be required if the team is going to make any more additions.

Contreras and Yajure were also both on the 40-man roster, so the Yankees have now opened spots up for Taillon and for one of Kluber or DJ LeMahieu, whose signings have yet to be officially announced by the team.

For the Pirates, this is the latest big move of a rebuild that has already seen Joe Musgrove and Josh Bell dealt in respective trades with the Padres and Nationals this winter.  There was no pressing payroll concern surrounding Taillon, but since the Bucs look to be more than two years away from contending, it made sense for the team to shop the righty now rather than risk an injury setback or poor performance from Taillon during the season.

For Musgrove, Bell, and now Taillon, the Pirates have added 11 young players to their organization via the three trades.  Similar to the Musgrove deal with San Diego, Pittsburgh received a larger package of prospects rather than a singular blue-chip talent, but it would be incorrect to say that the Pirates opted for quantity over quality.  Yajure (#15), Contreras (#19) and Smith (#21) were all ranked on MLB.com’s list of the top 30 prospects in the New York farm system.

Yajure made his Major League debut in 2020, posting a 1.29 ERA over seven relief innings while recording eight strikeouts and five walks.  Control wasn’t really a problem for Yajure over his minor league career, with only a 5.9BB% to go along with a 2.47 ERA and 20.8K% over 291 2/3 innings.  The 22-year-old also had a knack for keeping the ball in the park, with only 10 homers allowed during his minor league career.

Yajure started 54 of 61 minor league outings, and MLB Pipeline’s scouting report says he “has a high floor as a likely No. 4 or 5 starter.”  He could be a candidate for action in the Pirates’ rotation this season, but since he has yet to pitch at the Triple-A level, Yajure will probably begin the year in the minors.

Contreras, 21, was a product of the 2016 international draft class and has yet to pitch beyond the A-ball level, but he has a 3.25 ERA over 249 1/3 innings, starting 47 of 50 games.  There is some doubt as to whether or not Contreras will stick as a starter or be moved to the bullpen, according to MLB Pipeline, since he doesn’t record many strikeouts (20.1K%) and is “a flyball pitcher without much life on his fastball.”  Both his fastball and changeup receive a 55 on the 20-80 scouting scale, however, and his fastball averages in the 92-95mph range with some quality spin rate.

Smith was a fourth-round pick in the 2017 draft, and the 21-year-old has already shown an aptitude for getting on base.  Smith has hit .280/.389/.426 over 936 plate appearances in his young career, reaching as high as the A-ball level in 2019.  His left-handed swing doesn’t have much loft, as per Pipeline, but his slugging percentage did jump upwards to .465 in 2019.  Smith has played mostly left field and is an average defender overall, and he has shown good skill as a baserunner in stealing 21 bases in 28 chances despite average speed.

An international signing out of the Dominican Republic, the 18-year-old Escotto hit .315/.429/.552 over 218 PA in Dominican Summer League action in 2019.  Baseball America ranked Escotto 27th on their list of Yankees prospects, citing his “compact swing” and “solid plate discipline” and also describing him as a plus runner and plus defender.  Escotto played mostly second base in the DSL but also saw action as a third baseman and shortstop.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

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New York Yankees Newsstand Pittsburgh Pirates Transactions Jameson Taillon Miguel Yajure Roansy Contreras

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Pirates Designate Troy Stokes For Assignment

By Anthony Franco | January 24, 2021 at 2:24pm CDT

The Pirates are designating outfielder Troy Stokes Jr. for assignment, per Rob Biertempfel of the Athletic (Twitter link). Stokes was claimed off waivers from the Tigers earlier this month.

Pittsburgh needed to open a 40-man roster spot after today’s trade with the Yankees. Miguel Yajure and Roansy Contreras were each on New York’s 40-man; Jameson Taillon’s departure only freed space for one of those players.

Stokes, 25 next month, hasn’t yet made his MLB debut. A former fourth-round pick of the Brewers, he has bounced from Milwaukee to Detroit to Pittsburgh over the past couple years via waivers. That suggests Stokes is held in some regard by teams; indeed, the Tigers and Pirates were at the top of the league in waiver priority at the time of their respective claims. It wouldn’t be surprising if Stokes winds up claimed yet again.

In parts of six minor-league seasons, Stokes has compiled a .250/.351/.411 line while playing mostly left field. He has a pair of minor-league option years remaining. The Pirates have a week to trade Stokes, release him, or place him on outright waivers.

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Pittsburgh Pirates Transactions Troy Stokes

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Braves Re-Sign Pablo Sandoval To Minors Deal

By Mark Polishuk | January 24, 2021 at 12:27pm CDT

The Braves have signed infielder Pablo Sandoval to a minor league contract, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports (via Twitter).  Sandoval will earn $1MM if he makes Atlanta’s active roster.

Sandoval is back in Atlanta after first joining the Braves on a minors deal in September.  The team brought the Panda aboard to add depth given the Braves’ lack of third base production, and Sandoval ended up appearing in one regular-season game and then three NLCS games (as a pinch-hitter or defensive replacement) in an Atlanta uniform.  Since the Braves are still hoping for a breakout from Austin Riley and a rebound from Johan Camargo, it makes sense that Sandoval would again be brought back as a depth option.

If he breaks camp, the 34-year-old Sandoval will appear in his 14th Major League season and continue a career that has already delivered plenty of memorable moments.  Best known for his long tenure in San Francisco, Sandoval was part of three World Series championship teams, and won Series MVP honors in 2012.  He hasn’t been a true everyday player since 2014 (the final year of his initial tenure with the Giants), but Sandoval has at times been a productive part-timer and bench bat.  As recently as 2019, Sandoval hit .268/.313/.507 with 14 home runs over 296 plate appearances for the Giants.

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Atlanta Braves Transactions Pablo Sandoval

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Minor Transactions: 1/23/21

By TC Zencka | January 23, 2021 at 6:52pm CDT

The latest minor moves from around the game…

  • Former Nationals farmhand Drew Ward has signed a minor league deal with the Tigers, per Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post (via Twitter). The 26-year-old was a third round pick by the Nats back in 2013. He posted a 105 wRC+ in Triple-A and 139 wRC+ in Double-A during the 2019 season for the Nats. He consistently posted solid offensive numbers on his march through the Nats’ system, though his walk rate fell below average in 2019 as his strikeout rate shot up close to an unsightly 40 percent. The lefty bat can play both infield corners and serve as depth in that regard for the Tigers. It should be noted that while Ward’s walk rate and strikeout rate worsened in 2019, Ward’s isolated power numbers proved the best of his young career. If an approach shift resulted in selling out for power more often than not, Ward at least registered a .232 ISO across 205 plate appearances in Double-A and .270 ISO in 117 Triple-A plate appearances. Not to mention, Ward slashed a robust .335/.407/.633 with a 25.6 percent strikeout rate and 9.3 percent walk rate while playing Indy ball in 2020.
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Detroit Tigers Transactions Washington Nationals Drew Ward

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Astros Sign Jason Castro

By Steve Adams | January 23, 2021 at 2:48pm CDT

TODAY: The contract breaks down as a $2MM signing bonus, then $2.5MM salaries in both 2021 and 2022, Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle reports (Twitter link).  For every 10 games played as a catcher next season, Castro will add another $250K to his 2022 salary.

JAN. 22: The Astros have announced the signing.

JAN. 21, 8:42am: USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets that the contract will guarantee Castro a total of $7MM. Castro can earn up to an additional $2MM based on time spent behind the plate in 2021, tweets ESPN’s Jeff Passan.

8:25am: Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle reports that Castro’s contract is actually a two-year deal.

8:01am: The Astros have agreed to a one-year contract with free-agent backstop Jason Castro, Ken Rosenthal and Jake Kaplan of The Athletic report (via Twitter). The ISE Baseball client’s contract is pending a physical.

Jason Castro | Stan Szeto-USA TODAY Sports

The two sides were originally reported to be in talks late in December, but those negotiations slowed as Castro continued to survey the market. Along the way, the Cubs and the Tigers (managed by Castro’s former skipper, A.J. Hinch) emerged as potential alternatives. Now, however, a physical is all that stands in the way between Castro and a return to the organization that originally selected him with the No. 10 overall draft pick out of Stanford back in 2008.

Castro, 33, has been away from the Astros for four seasons — most of that time spent with the Twins organization. Minnesota signed Castro to a three-year, $24.5MM contract after the 2017 season due largely to his superlative pitch-framing skills and his knack for drawing walks at the plate. He had a solid 2017 season as the Twins’ primary backstop but missed nearly all of the 2018 campaign due to meniscus surgery. He returned in 2019 to have another productive year while splitting time evenly with breakout catcher Mitch Garver.

That strong showing from Garver in ’19 likely convinced the Twins they could move on, and Castro landed in Anaheim on a one-year deal with the Angels. He struggled at the plate in a tiny sample of 92 plate appearances between the Angels and the Padres, who acquired him prior to the Aug. 31 trade deadline this past summer.

All in all, Castro has batted .224/.322/.389 in 848 plate appearances since leaving the Astros — numbers that fall roughly in line with his career .230/.312/.390 batting line. He’s unlikely to ever hit for a high average due to his strikeout tendencies, but Castro has a career 10.1 percent walk rate (11.7 percent over the past four years) and has a bit of pop in his bat (.164 ISO, 26 homers, 43 doubles from 2017-20).

Defensive aptitude has been the driving factor behind Castro’s value in the market, though he’s been closer to average with the glove as he’s moved into his mid-30s and had to deal with the effects of that 2018 knee surgery. Castro has been just about average in terms of throwing out base thieves in the four years since leaving Houston, but his framing numbers have dropped off a bit, more recently, he’s struggled with regard to blocking pitches in the dirt. Of course, it’s also possible that as he further distances himself from that knee operation, he’ll regain some of his prior form.

In his return to Houston, Castro figures to pair with the right-handed-hitting Martin Maldonado behind the dish, giving manager Dusty Baker the opportunity to play matchups with a pair of solid defenders. Kaplan tweets that a straight platoon isn’t likely — Maldonado will start more often — although at least from an offensive standpoint, such an idea wouldn’t be a bad one. Castro is a career .195/.262/.291 hitter against lefties but a much-improved .242/.328/.421 hitter against righties. Maldonado, meanwhile, carries a 33-point gap in his OPS against lefties over righties (and a nine-point gap in his wRC+). He’s just a .213/.288/.353 career hitter against righties.

Houston may not generate huge offensive output from its pair of backstops. That’s true of most clubs throughout the league, however, and most pairings don’t have the sound defensive track records that both Castro and Maldonado possess. Besides — catchers, on the whole, have been about 10 to 15 percent worse than a league-average hitter over the past four years, so the ’Stros can certainly live with the level of offense provided by Castro and Maldonado if both play defense at their typically steady levels.

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Houston Astros Newsstand Transactions Jason Castro

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Reds Acquire Cionel Perez From Astros

By Mark Polishuk | January 23, 2021 at 11:20am CDT

The Reds have acquired left-hander Cionel Perez in a trade with the Astros, as officially announced on the Reds’ Twitter feed.  Houston will pick up minor league catcher Luke Berryhill in their end of the swap.

The move opens up a 40-man roster spot for the Astros, so the Michael Brantley signing could be officially announced at any moment.  For the second time in two days, the Reds picked up a reliever from a team looking to clear a 40-man spot, after Cincinnati acquired Hector Perez from the Blue Jays so Toronto could accommodate George Springer (whose deal is now official) on the roster.

Perez, 24, has pitched in each of the last three seasons, amassing a 5.74 ERA, 23.1K% and 10.3K-BB% over 26 2/3 career innings as a big leaguer.  Armed with a mid-90s fastball, Perez misses his fair share of bats but control has been an issue — particularly in 2020, when he issued six walks in just 6 1/3 innings of work.  He was a fairly high-profile international signing out of Cuba back in December 2016, but didn’t get much of a consistent look in Houston, as the Astros frequently shuttled Perez back and forth between their active roster and Triple-A (or to the alternate training site, in 2020).

While a small sample size, Perez has been significantly better against left-handed batters (.630 OPS in 39 PA) over his MLB career than against righty swingers (.825 OPS in 78 PA).  The three-batter rule will prevent the Reds from utilizing him as a true lefty specialist, but he does provide some southpaw depth for a Cincinnati team that is heavy in right-handed pitching.  Amir Garrett is the only other left-handed reliever on the Reds’ 40-man roster, so opportunity exists for Perez to win a job in Spring Training.

The Reds selected Berryhill in the 13th round of the 2019 draft.  A product of the University of South Carolina, Berryhill’s professional career thus far consists of only 32 Rookie League plate appearances in 2019, as the minor league shutdown last season kept Berryhill off the field.

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Cincinnati Reds Houston Astros Transactions Cionel Perez

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Nationals Re-Sign Ryan Zimmerman

By Steve Adams | January 23, 2021 at 11:04am CDT

TODAY: The Nats officially announced Zimmerman’s return.   USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets that Zimmerman’s contract contains a full no-trade clause.

JANUARY 22: The Nationals are bringing back longtime cornerstone Ryan Zimmerman on a one-year deal worth $1MM, reports USA Today’s Bob Nightengale (Twitter link). Zimmerman opted out of the 2020 season but said last month that he hoped to play again in 2021. The Washington Post’s Barry Svrluga adds that Zimmerman’s deal is still pending a physical and carries incentives to boost his that affordable base salary. Zimmerman is a client of CAA Sports.

Zimmerman, who turned 36 in September, has been a member of the Nats organization since they took him fourth overall in the 2005 draft. He was the first pick the franchise made after relocating from Montreal, and Zimmerman has certainly lived up to the selection. Zimmerman debuted in his draft year and has since put together a .279/.343/.475 line with 270 home runs in 7129 plate appearances. The former third baseman (who’s now a first baseman) also has a pair of All-Star nods on his resume and was part of the Nationals’ only World Series-winning team in 2019.

At present, there’s no path to everyday at-bats for “Mr. National,” given the team’s December acquisition of Josh Bell and the current lack of a universal designated hitter. Zimmerman, though, could certainly form a platoon with the switch-hitting Bell, who has historically been much better from the left side of the dish. Bell is a career .271/.360/.485 hitter as a lefty but just a .232/.315/.410 batter from the right side of the dish. Zimmerman, meanwhile, has clobbered lefties throughout his 15-year MLB career: .311/.390/.527.

That said, many still expect that MLB and the MLBPA will agree to keep the designated hitter in the National League between now and Opening Day, which would obviously open up more at-bats for Zimmerman, be it as a DH himself or at first base while the defensively challenged Bell slides into the DH spot.

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Newsstand Transactions Washington Nationals Ryan Zimmerman

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