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Rockies Non-Tender David Dahl, Tony Wolters

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The Rockies announced that they’ve non-tendered outfielder David Dahl, catcher Tony Wolters and right-hander Chi Chi Gonzalez. All three are now free agents.

Dahl, 26, registers as something of a surprise non-tender. The former top prospect was due only a very modest raise on last year’s $2.475MM salary, and while he struggled through an awful 2020 season, hitting .183/.222/.247, he’s only a year removed from an All-Star campaign. In 2019, Dahl slashed .302/.353/.524 with 15 big flies, 28 doubles and five triples through 413 plate appearances.

The sky once looked to be the limit for Dahl, the No. 10 overall pick in the 2012 draft. He was universally regarded as a top 100 prospect throughout his minor league career, landing within the top 25 on multiple lists in multiple offseasons. He debuted in 2016 and hit .315/.359/.500 through 236 plate appearances, looking every bit like the star that most anticipated he would become.

Unfortunately for Dahl, injuries have hindered him time and time again. He’s had his spleen removed after suffering a laceration during a violent on-field collision, and he’s since dealt with stress reactions in his rib cage, a fractured foot, a high ankle sprain, multiple back injuries and most recently a shoulder injury. With all of those health concerns, perhaps the Rockies simply didn’t expect they could count on him to remain on the field in 2021, but a salary in the $2.5-2.6MM range doesn’t seem like much of a risk given the upside he carried over his remaining three years of club control.

Wolters, 28, has been a non-tender candidate in each of the past two seasons but hung onto his roster spot despite a lack of production at the plate. Rockies brass clearly has long liked his defensive capabilities, but at this point the club wasn’t willing to give him a raise on top of last year’s $1.9MM salary. Over the past three seasons, Wolters has batted .231/.316/.307. Gonzalez, also 28, has pitched in 20 games (16 starts) for the Rox since 2019 but been roughed up for a 5.66 ERA and 5.62 FIP.

Angels Acquire Jose Iglesias

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The Angels have a new shortstop, as they’ve acquired veteran Jose Iglesias from the Orioles in exchange for minor league right-handers Garrett Stallings and Jean Pinto, per announcements from both clubs. It’s the second straight winter with a notable trade between the two teams. The Halos acquired Dylan Bundy from the O’s last winter.

It’s something of a surprising move — one that rather definitively closes the door on a reunion between the Halos and free-agent shortstop Andrelton Simmons (though most expected Simmons to land elsewhere anyhow). Baltimore general manager Mike Elias has previously spoken of Iglesias’ importance to the roster, calling him a “perfect fit for what we need right now” (link via Nathan Ruiz of the Baltimore Sun). Elias said it was an easy decision to pick up the $3.5MM club option on Iglesias for the 2021 season, although the Orioles waited until the last minute to formally make said decision.

Iglesias, 31 next month, may not be the generational defender that Simmons is, but he’s long been regarded as one of the game’s premier defenders at the position. The knock against him has typically been his offense (or lack thereof), but he flipped the narrative in 2020 by slashing .373/.400/.556 with three homers and 17 doubles. Iglesias shouldn’t be expected to repeat that production, as he benefited greatly from a .407 average on balls in play while landing in just the 12th and 36th percentiles, respectively, in average exit velocity and hard-hit rate.

That said, Iglesias still has some value at the dish. The 2020 season was actually the third of his career in which he’s batted .300 or better, and he’s been one of the more difficult hitters in the game to strike out since making his MLB debut back in 2011. He lacks any real power and doesn’t draw many walks, which often leads to a rather “empty” batting average, but those bat-to-ball skills do allow him to get on base at a respectable clip (career .319).

Iglesias’ BABIP-fueled surge was well-timed, as he wasn’t able to play much at shortstop in 2020 owing to a nagging quadriceps injury that limited his mobility. Assuming he’s healthy in 2021, he’ll give the Angels a shortstop who’s posted 18 Defensive Runs Saved and a 35.4 Ultimate Zone Rating over his past 4672 innings at the shortstop position.

It’s a cost-effective means of addressing a glaring hole on the roster — one that should allow the Angels to maintain a strong infield defense. That the Halos filled such a clear need via a trade bodes poorly for this winter’s crop of free-agent shortstops, however. With Simmons hitting the market, names like Marcus Semien and Didi Gregorius were surely eyeing the Angels as a potential fit. Iglesias’ salary is light enough that the Angels could still add another shortstop and use Iglesias in a utility role, though it seems unlikely that they’d have traded away young talent to acquire a utility man with so many other options on the market. In all likelihood, Iglesias will be tabbed as the starter, leaving Gregorius, Simmons, Semien and other shortstops looking elsewhere for homes in free agency.

In Stallings and Pinto, the Orioles will add another pair of far-off pitching prospects who could add to the organization’s depth down the road. Stallings was the Angels’ fifth-round pick out of the University of Tennessee in 2019 and now slots in 26th among Orioles farmhands over at MLB.com.

Stallings has yet to pitch in a professional game because the Angels shut him down after signing him out of the draft, citing a heavy college workload. MLB.com’s report on him credits him for having a legitimate four-pitch mix, albeit without a plus offering. FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen tabs Stallings as a “low-variance, fifth starter prospect.” The 19-year-old Pinto has just 12 pro innings under his belt and didn’t rank inside the Angels’ 30 best prospects, nor does he land on Baltimore’s top 30 list.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic first reported the deal (via Twitter).

American League Non-Tenders

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With revenue losses expected to result in reduced payrolls around baseball, a larger number of players than usual are expected to be let go by their current teams by tonight’s 7pm CT non-tender deadline.  Some of these players could end up re-signing with their teams for salaries below what they were projected (by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz) to earn through the arbitration process, or teams could end up simply opting to explore other options…with many of those options arriving on the market through this same non-tender process.

You can track all of the arbitration and non-tender activity here, and we’ll also run through the list of American League players who have been let go in this post.  (The NL list is available here.)

  • In addition to Naquin, covered below, the Indians announced that they’ve non-tendered outfielder Delino DeShields Jr. and right-hander Jefry Rodriguez. Cleveland picked up DeShields in the Corey Kluber salary dump to the Rangers last winter, and he managed a tepid .252/.310/.318 slash in 137 plate appearances. Rodriguez wasn’t arb-eligible yet and didn’t pitch in the Majors this season, but the Indians obviously wanted to open the 40-man spot. He has a career 5.20 ERA and 5.29 FIP in 98 2/3 innings.
  • The Rangers non-tendered utilityman Danny Santana, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports. The 30-year-old switch-hitter had a big season with Texas in 2019, but as was the case with his rookie showing in Minnesota, the results were largely BABIP-driven. Santana underwent elbow surgery in September and may not be ready for Opening Day, so his non-tender isn’t a surprise. Outfielder Scott Heineman and righty Jimmy Herget were also non-tendered, the team announced.
  • Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times tweets that the Rays have non-tendered righty Edgar Garcia, who was not yet eligible for arbitration. Tampa acquired Garcia for a PTBNL in August after the Phils designated him for assignment, but he was hit hard in a small sample of work. The Rays prefer to have an open roster spot and will make Garcia a free agent.

Earlier Non-Tenders

  • The Indians have non-tendered outfielder Tyler Naquin, Paul Hoynes of cleveland.com tweets. Naquin, who would have earned around $2MM in arbitration, is coming off a poor year in Cleveland. The 29-year-old slashed .218/.248/.383 with four home runs, 40 strikeouts and five walks in 141 plate appearances. Naquin joined the Indians as the 15th overall pick in 2012, but he has only provided league-average offense since debuting in 2016.
  • The Royals also non-tendered Maikel Franco, as covered here. The White Sox, meanwhile, cut ties with Nomar Mazara and Carlos Rodon, as outlined here.

Royals Non-Tender Maikel Franco, Bubba Starling

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6:52pm: The Royals have non-tendered Franco, infielder Jeison Guzman, infielder/outfielder Erick Mejia and outfielder Bubba Starling, Lynn Worthy of the Kansas City Star tweets. This could end Starling’s tenure in KC. He was the fifth overall pick in 2011 but hasn’t come close to living up to his draft status.

3:22pm: The Royals are expected to non-tender third baseman Maikel Franco, Mark Feinsand of MLB.com reports. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected Franco to earn between $4.5MM and $8MM in his final year of arbitration eligibility, but those figures were too rich for the Royals’ blood.

Although he was a star prospect with the Phillies, Franco didn’t pan out in their uniform after an excellent rookie showing in 2015. The Phillies non-tendered him after last season as a result, and Franco then caught on with the Royals on a $2.95MM guarantee. It ended up as a decent investment for Kansas City, with which Franco slashed .278/.321/.457 (106 wRC+) and totaled eight home runs in 243 plate appearances. He also chipped in playable work at third base with zero Defensive Runs Saved and a plus-1.3 Ultimate Zone Rating in 51 games.

While Franco took a step forward this past season, the Royals obviously don’t think that production merited a sizable raise in arbitration. That means the 28-year-old Franco will head back to the open market, where he’ll join the likes of Marwin Gonzalez and Todd Frazier after top option Justin Turner.

Dan Straily To Re-Sign With KBO’s Lotte Giants

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Right-hander Dan Straily is returning for a second season with the Lotte Giants of the Korea Baseball Organization, reports Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press. Straily received some interest from teams around the Majors, but the Apex Baseball client will instead return to the KBO on another one-year deal. The pact is worth $1.2MM and includes $500K in incentives, Craig Mish of Sportsgrid tweets.

In 31 starts with the Giants in his debut KBO campaign, Straily totaled 194 frames and pitched to a 2.50 ERA and 2.97 FIP with 9.5 strikeouts, 2.4 walks and 0.46 home runs allowed per nine innings pitched. That showing garnered some interest from the Reds, Angels and Giants, among others. Based on the fact that he’s returning to the KBO, it’s possible that Straily didn’t receive a guaranteed offer, so he’ll instead re-up and take home a raise over last year’s $1MM salary.

It’s possible that Straily could have eventually found a big league deal had he waited out the Major League free-agent market, but that would’ve been a slow-going process with so many clubs still uncertain about their 2021 budgets and with many new entrants expected to hit the market thanks to today’s non-tender deadline. KBO clubs tend to get their business done much earlier in their offseason than most MLB organizations, so Straily looks to be opting for the guaranteed payday already in hand. Another strong season in 2021 would only strengthen his case for a big league return next winter.

Straily’s last big league action was disastrous, as he allowed 52 earned runs in just 47 2/3 frames for the Orioles back in 2019. However, he was a quality mid-rotation piece the three years prior, totaling 495 1/3 innings of 4.03 ERA ball with 7.8 K/9 against 3.4 BB/9 in 495 1/3 innings between the Reds and the Marlins.

Braves Non-Tender Adam Duvall

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The Braves have non-tendered outfielder Adam Duvall, Jeff Passan of ESPN reports. Duvall was in line to make at least $4MM in arbitration, but he’ll instead head to the free-agent market.

Duvall just wrapped up a two-plus-season stint with the Braves, who acquired him from the Reds before the 2018 trade deadline. Duvall was a two-time 30-home run hitter at that point, but he struggled enough during his final Reds season for the team to cut the cord on him. To Duvall’s credit, he rebounded from 2019-20 as a member of the Braves, hitting .248/.307/.545 (118 wRC+) with 26 home runs in 339 plate appearances. The 32-year-old was among the NL’s HR leaders with 16 in 2020, but that wasn’t enough to convince the Braves to tender him a contract.

While Duvall is no longer a Brave, it doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t bring him back for a cheaper salary, as Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweets that they’ll consider re-signing him. For now, though, a team that has already seen Marcell Ozuna and Nick Markakis hit free agency is down another outfielder.

Mets Sign Trevor May

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DEC. 2: The deal is official. It’s a $15.5MM guarantee, Jeff Passan of ESPN tweets. May could make another $250K in performance bonuses in each season.

DEC. 1, 4:07pm: May’s contract is worth around $15MM, Heyman tweets.

2:10pm: It’s a two-year deal for May, per MLB Network’s Jon Heyman (Twitter link).

1:37pm: The Mets have agreed to terms on a contract with free-agent reliever Trevor May, SNY’s Andy Martino reports (via Twitter). The contract is pending a physical. MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo reported earlier this afternoon that May and the Mets were “deep” in talks. May is represented by the VC Sports Group.

Trevor May | Jeffrey Becker-USA TODAY Sports

May, 31, becomes the first prominent reliever to come off the board. The longtime Twins righty bounced back from Tommy John surgery that wiped out his 2017 season to become a reliable, late-inning power arm in Minnesota and one of the game’s foremost strikeout pitchers.

Since returning from that elbow operation, May has compiled 113 innings of 3.19 ERA and 3.56 FIP ball, averaging 12.2 strikeouts, 3.0 walks and 1.4 home runs per nine innings pitched. This past season was particularly impressive for May in terms of missing bats, as he whiffed an outstanding 39.6 percent of the hitters he faced.

May’s fastball averaged a career-high 96.4 mph in 2020, although the righty threw the pitch at a greatly reduced 52.1 percent clip. In place of the heaters, the right-hander ramped up the use of his slider to a career-high 32.2 percent and did so to great success; May generated a 14.6 percent swinging-strike rate on his slider, and plate appearances he finished with that pitch resulted in opponents putting up a pitiful .167/.167/.250 batting line.

Because he works at the top of the zone with his four-seamer, May has trouble with the long ball at times. However he also generated a ridiculous 20.6 percent swinging-strike rate on his fastball thanks to high-end velocity and spin on the pitch. Overall, Statcast pegged May in the 99th percentile of Major League pitchers in terms of swinging-strike rate and in the 98th percentile in terms of overall strikeout rate in 2020. For a Mets club that already boasts several power arms at the back of the bullpen, May only adds more firepower.

Of course, many of those arms are in need of a rebound. It’s arguable that if Jeurys Familia, Dellin Betances and others had all pitched to their capabilities in 2020, the Mets might not have felt as motivated to make a push for an “early” deal with May. Still, pairing May with Edwin Diaz, Familia, Betances, Miguel Castro, Brad Brach and potentially Seth Lugo — depending on which direction the organization goes with him — gives the Mets a deep and talented mix of late-inning weapons, even if they there’s some considerable inconsistency among the bunch.

May was no doubt highly recommended and perhaps even personally recruited by Mets pitching coach Jeremy Hefner, who was the Twins’ bullpen coach prior to the 2020 season. Hefner, a former Mets pitcher, played a role in helping to coax a breakout from May and several other Twins relievers before being hired away by his former team.

The May signing is the first notable move of what most expect to be a highly active offseason for the Mets. While they’re still on the search for a new general manager, Sandy Alderson is back with the club under deep-pocketed new owner Steve Cohen and is calling the shots in baseball operations at the moment. With the game’s richest owner now in their corner, the Mets have already been linked to the majority of the top names on both the trade and free-agent markets.

White Sox Non-Tender Nomar Mazara, Carlos Rodon

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The White Sox announced that they won’t tender contracts to outfielder Nomar Mazara and left-hander Carlos Rodon. This isn’t surprising news in either case, though it does continue a fall from grace for two players who were regarded as standout prospects during their younger days.

Mazara, formerly with Texas, joined the White Sox in a trade last December. While Mazara didn’t live up to the hype as a Ranger, the White Sox were surely hoping a change of scenery would help him reach his potential. Instead, the 25-year-old hit a miserable .228/.295/.294 with one home run in 149 plate appearances during his lone year in Chicago. The White Sox decided to cut Mazara in lieu of paying him $5MM-plus in arbitration.

Rodon was the No. 3 overall pick of the White Sox in 2014, though he never turned into the ace the team thought it was drafting. He was a pretty successful starter earlier in his career, but serious arm injuries (including issues that required shoulder surgery and a Tommy John procedure) slowed him over the previous couple of years. Rodon threw just 34 2/3 innings in 2019 and 7 2/3 this past season, combining for 5.74 ERA (and a much better 3.85 FIP) alongside 11.06 K/9 against 4.25 BB/9 in the process. The White Sox would have owed the 27-year-old more than $4MM in arbitration had they tendered him.

Yankees Will Tender Gary Sanchez

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The Yankees plan to tender a contract to catcher Gary Sanchez prior to tonight’s 7pm CT non-tender deadline, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman tweets.  As per the “37 percent” projection method used by MLBTR’s Matt Swart, Sanchez is projected to earn $5.5MM in his second trip through the arbitration process.

The idea of Sanchez as a non-tender candidate would have been unthinkable even a year ago, and yet it arose as a possibility in the wake of a disastrous 2020 season for the catcher.  Sanchez hit only .147/.253/.365 over 178 plate appearances, continued to struggle defensively, and saw Kyle Higashioka mostly assume starting catcher duties down the stretch and into the Yankees’ postseason run.

Coming on the heels of a down year in 2018 and even a 2019 season that saw Sanchez post big power numbers but a .232 batting average and .316 OBP, there was some thought that the Yankees might just cut ties entirely with the former All-Star.  With the Yankees rumored to be looking to duck under the luxury tax threshold, Sanchez’s salary would have been seen as expendable.

On the other hand, there was also sound reasoning in keeping Sanchez.  $5.5MM isn’t a big cost for a player (especially a catcher) with Sanchez’s power potential, and he was certainly far from the only notable star who struggled within the small sample size of the 60-game 2020 campaign and all of the unusual circumstances surrounding the season.  Getting rid of Sanchez would also mean that New York would’ve had to find a replacement behind the plate, which might have also been a costly endeavor unless the team signed a platoon-type to split time with Higashioka.

It still isn’t out the question that Sanchez could be traded before Opening Day, though finding a deal would be tricky.  The Yankees surely wouldn’t want to move Sanchez when his value is at its lowest, though rival teams also obviously wouldn’t want to pay a premium given the catcher’s rough year.

Cubs Claim Robert Stock

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The Cubs announced that right-hander Robert Stock has been claimed off waivers from the Red Sox.  Stock was designated for assignment by Boston last week.

Stock posted a 4.73 ERA over 13 1/3 innings for the Red Sox last season.  The 31-year-old has a 4.24 ERA, 2.16 K/BB rate, and 9.5 K/9 over 63 2/3 career innings with Boston and San Diego from 2018-20, though Stock also pitched for a number of different organizations (both MLB-affiliated and in independent ball and Mexico) since the Cardinals made him a second-round pick in the 2009 draft.

Control has been something of an issue for Stock both in the minors and particularly in the majors over the course of his career, though he does have a live fastball that regularly sits in the mid-90s.  There’s little risk for the Cubs in seeing if they can turn that live arm into a more reliable bullpen weapon as Chicago looks to add relief help this offseason.

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