Angels Acquire Tyler Wade, Designate Kean Wong
The Yankees announced Monday that they’ve traded infielder/outfielder Tyler Wade to the Angels in exchange for cash or a player to be named later. Wade was designated for assignment Friday amid a series of moves as the Yankees set their roster in advance of the Rule 5 protection deadline. The Angels announced that they have designated utilityman Kean Wong for assignment in a corresponding move.
Wade, 27 tomorrow, has spent parts of the past five seasons on the Yankees’ bench, serving as an oft-used utility option while being frequently shuttled between the big leagues and Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Last year’s 145 plate appearances were a career-high (though they were spread across 103 games), and Wade’s .268/.354/.323 slash during that small sample was the most productive of MLB stretch of his career. In all, he’s a .212/.298/.307 hitter in 491 plate appearances for the Yankees.
Of course, Wade was always more of a defensive option than a player expected to make meaningful contributions with the bat. During his half-decade run with the Yankees, he saw time at every position other than first base, catcher and pitcher. The bulk of that workload came at second base (546 innings) and shortstop (331 innings), but Wade has 33 appearances at the hot corner and 57 in the outfield.
Wong, the younger brother of Brewers second baseman Kolten Wong, was a fourth-round pick by the Rays back in 2013 but has yet to find his footing in the big leagues. The 26-year-old has seen MLB times both with Tampa Bay and the Halos but managed only a .167/.188/.218 output in an admittedly small sample of 84 plate appearances. The younger Wong is a career .293/.355/.421 hitter in more than 1600 Triple-A plate appearances, however, and he also still has a pair of minor league option years remaining.
Another club in need of some infield depth could conceivably take a chance on Wong, who’ll either be traded, placed on outright waivers or released in the next seven days. Even if Wong goes unclaimed on waivers and is outrighted to Triple-A Salt Lake, he’ll have the opportunity to reject that assignment and become a free agent, given that it would be the second time in his career that he’s been outrighted.
D-backs Sign Matt Davidson To Minor League Deal
Infielder Matt Davidson is returning to the organization that drafted him, as the D-backs’ Triple-A affiliate announced this weekend that Davidson has signed a minor league contract with an invitation to Major League Spring Training.
Selected with the No. 36 overall pick back in 2009, Davidson has shown plenty of power in the big leagues but hasn’t solidified himself as a consistent MLB contributor despite parts of five seasons in the Majors. The MVP Sports client last appeared for the 2020 Reds, hitting .163/.234/.395 with three homers and a double in 47 plate appearances.
In a total of 1075 plate appearances from 2013-20, Davidson is a lifetime .223/.292/.433 hitter with 52 home runs but a sky-high 34.2% strikeout rate. He’s split his big league time evenly between the two infield corners, and while there was some brief consideration of making Davidson a two-way player a few years ago, he has just 7 1/3 innings on the mound in his pro career.
Davidson will add some right-handed-hitting depth to the D-backs’ infield picture, and he’s coming off a massive performance with the Dodgers’ Triple-A club in 2021. Last year, in just 356 plate appearances with Oklahoma City, Davidson slugged 28 homers and tallied 21 doubles while batting .294/.365/.629 (136 wRC+).
NPB’s Seibu Lions Sign Dietrich Enns
TODAY: Enns is heading to Japan to sign with the Seibu Lions, the team announced.
NOVEMBER 17: The Rays are in the process of finalizing an agreement to send left-hander Dietrich Enns to a team either in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, the Korea Baseball Organization or Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League, reports Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (Twitter link). Enns will be placed on release waivers today and, upon clearing Friday, will be free to sign with his new club.
Moves such as this one generally benefit all parties and are, of course, made with full consent from the player in question. Whichever team held interest in Enns would first contact the Rays, who’d then gauge the player’s interest in the opportunity before proceeding to negotiate a release agreement. Tampa Bay will likely receive some financial compensation for releasing Enns, while the pitcher himself will receive a larger salary in NPB or the KBO than he’d have earned as a fringe big leaguer in 2022 — if he’d even stuck on the Rays’ 40-man roster.
Enns, 30, was quite effective in 22 1/3 frames for the Rays this past season, pitching to a 2.82 ERA with an impressive 28.4% strikeout rate against a strong 6.8% walk rate. That marked the first big league action for Enns since a brief four-inning cup of coffee with the 2017 Twins, however, and the lefty’s minor league track record generally isn’t as strong as this past season’s results. Enns did post a 2.64 ERA in 71 2/3 Triple-A frames, but he carries a career 4.26 ERA with pedestrian strikeout and walk rates in nearly 400 innings at that level.
The benefit to the arrangement for Enns could be twofold. In addition to securing a guaranteed salary of some note for the first time in an 11-year professional career, he’ll also set himself up for the opportunity to potentially return to Major League Baseball outside the constructs of the arbitration system.
Had Enns remained with the Rays, he’d have needed another three years on the roster before qualifying for arbitration eligibility as a 33-year-old (at least, as the arbitration system currently stands). However, by going to NPB, the KBO or the CPBL, Enns could impress for only a season or two and then return on a guaranteed Major League deal. Chris Flexen, Merrill Kelly, Josh Lindblom and Miles Mikolas are among the recent players to go this route, securing considerable salaries overseas before returning to the big leagues on guaranteed, multi-year contracts that typically allow them to become free agents upon completion (rather than remain under control via arbitration). It’s not a foolproof gambit, of course, but even if Enns struggles in his new environs he’d still likely come away with more than he’d have earned with a big league club in 2022.
With the removal of Enns, the Rays’ 40-man roster will have three open spots. Topkin suggests that the Rays may look to open another spot or two prior to Friday’s Rule 5 protection deadline.
Brewers To Sign Pedro Severino
The Brewers have signed catcher Pedro Severino to a one-year, $1.9MM deal, ESPN.com’s Jeff Passan reports (via Twitter). Another $400K in incentives are available to the 28-year-old backstop, who is represented by Republik Sports. The contract will become official when Severino passes a physical.
After Manny Pina signed with the Braves earlier this week, Severino will now step directly into Pina’s role as the right-handed hitting complement to the lefty-swinging Omar Narvaez behind the plate in Milwaukee. Narvaez struggles badly against left-handed pitching and he struggled in general in the second half of the 2021 season, so there should be a fair amount of playing time available to Severino with his new club.
Severino, for his part, has a very solid .262/.324/.441 career slash line against left-handed pitching, with particularly good numbers in both 2019 (.812 OPS in 155 PA) and 2021 (.818 OPS in 161 PA). Severino didn’t do much against righties, however, and between his projected $3.1MM arbitration salary and Adley Rutschman looming as the Orioles’ catcher of the future, Baltimore chose to outright Severino off its 40-man roster earlier this month. Severino then opted to become a free agent for the first time in his career.
Severino has a third and final year of arbitration eligibility next winter, so this extra year of control gives the Brewers some flexibility in future catching decisions since Narvaez is himself a free agent after the 2022 campaign. Prospect Mario Feliciano made his MLB debut last year, so if the Brew Crew is optimistic about his future, Milwaukee could potentially roll with a Feliciano/Severino combination in 2023 if the club decided to let Narvaez walk.
Defensively, Severino has been a below-average framer and he has -19 Defensive Runs Saved over his career. As noted by Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, however, there is some cause for optimism that the Brewers can get Severino turned around in the same way that Narvaez went from being a subpar defender to a very strong pitch-framer in his two seasons with the Brew Crew.
Pirates To Sign Jose Quintana
The Pirates have agreed to a deal with left-hander Jose Quintana, according to FanSided’s Robert Murray (Twitter link). MLB Network’s Jon Heyman adds that Quintana’s contract is a one-year, Major League pact, and Jason Mackey of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that Quintana will earn around $2MM (both links to Twitter). The signing will become official once Quintana passes a physical. Quintana is represented by the Wasserman Agency.
Quintana was one of the more durable and generally solid starters in baseball from 2012-19, when the southpaw pitched for the White Sox and Cubs. However, thumb injuries and lat inflammation limited Quintana to only 10 innings for the Cubs in 2020, and he also spent about three weeks on the injured list this past season due to shoulder inflammation. That IL stint was only one of the issues Quintana faced in 2021, after he signed a one-year, $8MM deal with the Angels last winter.
The left-hander had only a 6.75 ERA over 53 1/3 innings in Anaheim, and then a 4.66 ERA over 9 2/3 innings with the Giants after being claimed off waivers at the end of August. It all worked out to a 6.43 ERA as a whole over 63 frames, though Quintana’s SIERA (3.94) and xFIP (3.75) were more than respectable. A 3.78 BABIP may be the standout statistic in that regard, as Quintana received very little help from the Angels’ poor defense.
Batted-ball luck wasn’t the only culprit to blame for Quintana’s numbers, however. He allowed a ton of hard contact and his 11.8% walk rate was easily the highest of his career. On the flip side, Quintana’s 28.6% strikeout rate was also the highest of his career, and his whiff rate was well above the league average. Quintana was also quite a bit more effective as a reliever than as a starter last year, as the Angels moved him to the bullpen in the wake of his rotation struggles. This could hint at a new direction for Quintana as he enters his age-33 season, or at least a fallback option for the Pirates if Quintana doesn’t produce as a starter.
Given Pittsburgh’s need for starting pitching, it seems likely that the Bucs will use Quintana in their rotation to begin the year and hope that he can regain some of his pre-2020 form as a reliable innings-eater. The Pirates don’t have much big league experience in their projected starting five, and the team surely wants to avoid a repeat of 2021, when a plethora of injuries and trades resulted in the Bucs having to dig deep into their depth chart to cover starts. Should Quintana pitch well, Pittsburgh could also dangle him as a trade chip at the deadline.
White Sox Select Bennett Sousa, Jason Bilous
The White Sox announced this afternoon they’ve selected pitchers Bennett Sousa and Jason Bilous to their 40-man roster. The moves keep both players from being selected in the Rule 5 draft.
Sousa, 26, was a tenth-round pick in 2018 out of the University of Virginia. The reliever has never appeared on an organizational top 30 ranking at FanGraphs or Baseball America, but he’s posted strong minor league numbers. The southpaw split the 2021 campaign between Double-A Birmingham and Triple-A Charlotte, working to a 3.61 ERA over 47 1/3 cumulative frames. Sousa fanned a strong 35.5% of opponents along the way against a 10% walk rate.
Bilous, 24, was a 13th-round pick in the same class coming out of Coastal Carolina. The right-hander has spent his entire minor league career as a starter, although his elevated walk rates might result in a bullpen future. BA ranked Bilous 21st among White Sox farmhands midseason, crediting him with a low-90s fastball and plus slider. He spent 2021 at High-A Winston-Salem and in Birmingham, combining for a 5.76 ERA over 79 2/3 innings with a 30.2% strikeout rate and a 9.1% walk percentage.
Brewers Outright Mark Mathias
The Brewers announced this afternoon that utilityman Mark Mathias has cleared waivers and been assigned outright to Triple-A Nashville. The 27-year-old doesn’t have the requisite service time to reject an outright assignment, so he’ll remain in the organization but no longer occupy a spot on the 40-man roster.
Mathias has spent the bulk of his career in the Cleveland farm system. He generally offered a solid combination of bat-to-ball skills, plate discipline and defensive versatility, helping to compensate for a lack of power. Milwaukee swung a minor trade to acquire the right-handed hitter in November 2019 and selected him to their 40-man roster.
With no minor league season in 2020, Mathias spent the bulk of the year on optional assignment to the alternate training site. He did appear in sixteen big league games, tallying 36 plate appearances. Mathias came to Spring Training in 2021 hoping to compete for a utility role. Unfortunately, he suffered a labrum tear in his shoulder in March and missed the entire season, although he did at least pick up a big league salary and service time while on the injured list.
Mets Select Ronny Mauricio, Three Others
The Mets have added a quartet of players to their 40-man roster tweets Tim Healey of Newsday. The Mets players being added to the roster, and thus being protected from the impending Rule 5 draft, are shortstop Ronny Mauricio, infielder/outfielder Mark Vientos, and right-handed pitchers Jose Butto and Adam Oller. The Mets now have 36 players on their roster.
Mauricio has appeared among Baseball America’s top 100 overall prospects in each of the past three years. The switch-hitter’s best attribute is his big power from both sides of the plate, but Mauricio has moved fairly slowly up the minor league ladder. He’s posted subpar strikeout and walk numbers, and he’s coming off just a .242/.290/.449 showing over 420 High-A plate appearances. Still, Mauricio boasts a rare level of power for a player projected to stick on the infield.
Vientos is a former second-rounder who mashed at a .281/.346/.580 clip with 22 homers over 306 Double-A plate appearances. He struck out at an alarming 28.4% clip and isn’t particularly well-regarded defensively, but those numbers highlight massive raw power that has made him an intriguing prospect for years. BA slots him fourth among New York farmhands.
Butto and Oller are both coming off strong high minors campaigns. The former, whom BA named the Mets’ #13 prospect entering 2021, worked 40 1/3 innings of 3.12 ERA ball over his first eight Double-A starts. Oller, 27, is older than most prospects, but he earns a roster spot after tossing 120 frames of 3.45 ERA ball between Double-A and Triple-A this past season.
Astros Trade Garrett Stubbs To Phillies
The Phillies announced Friday that they have acquired catcher Garrett Stubbs from the Astros in exchange for minor league outfielder Logan Cerny. Stubbs becomes the second backup catching option acquired by the Phils tonight, who also added minor league backstop Donny Sands in a trade with the Yankees.
Stubbs, 28, has spent parts of three seasons in the Majors with the ‘Stros, hitting at a combined .182/.238/.247 clip — albeit through a tiny sample of 87 plate appearances. It’s obviously not an impressive line, but Stubbs has a far better track record in Triple-A, where he hit .265/.418/.363 this season and carries a career-long line of .272/.369/.404 in parts of four seasons.
The Phils obviously don’t have a need for a starting catcher, not with J.T. Realmuto entering the second season of a five-year contract, but Stubbs will join Sands as a backup option. The former eighth-rounder has a strong defensive reputation, having posted a massive 41% caught-stealing rate in his pro career and strong framing rates (via Baseball Prospectus) throughout his minor league tenure. Stubbs also has a minor league option remaining, giving the Phils some flexibility if they choose to acquire a more established backup option to Realmuto. That said, Stubbs seems plenty capable of filling a backup role — he just hasn’t had the opportunity in recent seasons with the Astros leaning heavily on Martin Maldonado and Jason Castro.
As was the case in the Phillies’ trade with the Yankees, they tapped into their recent draft class to add some depth options rather than dealing more experienced farmhands from a thin minor league system. It’s not a bad strategy in moderation, particularly given that all of the players acquired in today’s pair of deals — Stubbs, Sands and righty Nick Nelson — can both be immediate depth options and be controlled for several years.
Cerny, 22, obviously isn’t one of the Phils’ top prospects given his status as a recent 10th-round pick, but he turned in a .291/.377/.529 in three seasons at Troy University. He hit .200/.349/.286 in 43 pro plate appearances following the draft.
Giants Select Three Players, Designate Jay Jackson For Assignment
The Giants have selected outfielder Heliot Ramos and right-handers Sean Hjelle and Randy Rodriguez to the 40-man roster. The moves keep them from being eligible for the Rule 5 draft. To create roster space, San Francisco designated reliever Jay Jackson for assignment and returned Rule 5 pick Dedniel Nuñez to the Mets.
Ramos is among the better prospects in baseball, entering the 2021 campaign as Baseball America’s #83 overall farmhand. A first-round pick out of Puerto Rico in 2017, the right-handed hitting Ramos has compensated for a lot of swing-and-miss by hitting for a lot of power. He’s regarded as a potential above-average everyday right fielder and hit .254/.323/.416 with 14 homers in 495 plate appearances between Double-A Richmond and Triple-A Sacramento.
Hjelle was a second-rounder out of the University of Kentucky in 2018. The big righty draws praise for his deception and control, but his minor league track record has been mixed. The 24-year-old dominated in the low minors but has run into some trouble at the higher levels, particularly in Triple-A. BA ranks him eleventh in system and calls him a potential back-end starter.
Rodriguez, 22, is a former amateur signee out of the Dominican Republic. Working exclusively as a reliever, he pitched to a sterling 1.74 ERA with a huge 39.1% strikeout rate and a fine 8.9% walk percentage over 62 innings with Low-A Augusta. Rodriguez has never appeared on an organizational ranking at FanGraphs or BA.
San Francisco’s decision to DFA Jackson comes as a bit of a surprise, considering the club just exercised a 2022 option on his services a few weeks back. Signed to a minors pact in January, the 34-year-old Jackson made the big league club in July and worked 21 2/3 frames down the stretch. He struck out a strong 31.1% of opposing hitters in that time, although he also handed out free passes at an alarming 13.3% clip.
Nuñez never appeared in a regular season game with the Giants. Selected out of the New York organization in last year’s Rule 5 draft, he suffered an elbow injury in Spring Training and eventually underwent Tommy John surgery. He’ll return to the Mets but won’t occupy a 40-man roster spot.