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Orioles Claim Travis Lakins, Designate Stevie Wilkerson

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The Orioles announced Friday that they’ve claimed righty Travis Lakins off waivers from the Cubs. Infielder/outfielder Stevie Wilkerson was designated for assignment in a corresponding roster move.

Lakins, 25, was designated for assignment by the Red Sox earlier this winter and subsequently traded to Chicago for cash. Although he’d consistently ranked in the No. 15-25 range of a thin Boston farm system, the Ohio State product has yet to put together a particularly strong showing in the Majors or in the upper minors. Lakins made his big league debut this past season, yielding a 3.86 ERA with a lackluster 18-to-10 K/BB ratio in 23 2/3 innings for Boston. His work in Triple-A has been rather similar, as he’s compiled a 3.82 ERA with 8.4 K/9, 4.1 BB/9 and slightly below-average grounder rates in parts of two seasons there. Lakins worked as a starter earlier in his career but has pitched primarily out of the bullpen the past couple of seasons.

Wilkerson, 28, is a career .219/.279/.365 hitter in 410 plate appearances — most of which came this past season in Baltimore. He’s spent time at all three outfield positions with the O’s in addition to second base and third base, although he’s most likely remembered by many for his absurd home run robbery against Jackie Bradley Jr. at Fenway Park this past season (video link). He also holds the distinction of being the first position player to earn a save, which he did when pitching the 16th inning of a marathon win over the Angels on July 25 of this past season.

The switch-hitting Wilkerson hasn’t spent much time in Triple-A but has had some success there, hitting .294/.340/.478 through 153 trips to the plate. Wilkerson has generally been a versatile defender with respectable batting average/on-base percentage marks but limited power in the minors; since being drafted out of Clemson in the eighth round back in 2014, he’s hit .268/.342/.371 in six minor league seasons.

Cubs, Corban Joseph Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Cubs have agreed to a minor league contract with infielder Corban Joseph, tweets Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com. The PSI Sports Management client will be in Major League camp this spring.

Joseph, 31, has appeared in the big leagues in each of the past two seasons — albeit on a very limited basis. He’s played in just 44 MLB games, tallying 94 plate appearances and posting a tepid .170/.213/.261 batting line with a homer and five doubles.

That said, Joseph is a fairly accomplished Triple-A hitter with some defensive versatility. In parts of six Triple-A seasons, he’s a .294/.362/.457 hitter, and he has experience at second base, third base and first base over the course of a 12-year professional career.

Phillies Claim Reggie McClain

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The Phillies announced Friday that they’ve claimed right-hander Reggie McClain off waivers from the Mariners and designated fellow righty Trevor Kelley for assignment in order to open space on the 40-man roster.

McClain, 27, was designated for assignment by Seattle last week when the club claimed lefty Nick Margevicius from the Padres. McClain made his big league debut in 2019 but struggled to a 6.00 ERA in 21 innings with the Mariners. McClain had a big season in the minors last year, however, skyrocketing across three levels and notching a combined 2.23 ERA with 8.9 K/9, 2.7 BB/9 and 0.5 HR/9 in 72 2/3 innings.

McClain averages just under 94 mph on a heavy sinker that led to a huge 64.8 percent ground-ball rate in his 21 MLB innings, and his grounder rate in the minors checked in at nearly 60 percent as well. McClain still has all three minor league option years remaining, so if he sticks with the Phillies, they’ll be able to shuttle him back and forth between Philadelphia and Triple-A Lehigh Valley as often as they see fit.

The 26-year-old Kelley was also a waiver claim by the Phillies, coming over from the Red Sox organization in early December. Like McClain, he struggled in his MLB debut this past season (eight runs in 8 1/3 innings) but posted impressive minor league numbers in 2019 (1.79 ERA, 8.7 K/9, 2.9 BB/9 in 65 2/3 innings).

Mets Sign Matt Adams

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The Mets have inked first baseman Matt Adams to a minor-league deal, per a club announcement. He’ll receive an invitation to participate on the MLB side of Spring Training.

Adams, 31, just wrapped up a stint with the division-rival Nationals. While he had a strong showing for the team in 2018, he stumbled to a .226/.276/.465 batting line last year. There’s obviously still loads of power in Adams’s bat, and he has been a quality overall hitter in the not-so-distant past. However, the Nats elected to move on and signed fellow lefty slugger Eric Thames.

There isn’t really an opening to make the Mets’ roster for the veteran first baseman, but that could change if the team ends up trading (or optioning) fellow left-handed-hitting first baseman Dominic Smith. There hasn’t been much chatter to that effect, but the former top prospect is in an awkward spot with Pete Alonso slated to handle almost all of the action at first base. Adams could conceivably fit as a bench bat if Smith isn’t on the roster, but he otherwise looks like upper-minors depth or perhaps a player who’ll use his spring stint with the Mets as an audition for other clubs, as is common for veterans on minor league pacts that time of year.

Giants To Sign Nick Vincent

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The Giants have agreed to terms with veteran reliever Nick Vincent, per Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com (via Twitter). It’s a minors deal with a spring invite.

Vincent opened the 2019 season in San Francisco but struggled before being cut loose. He ended up turning in 14 good innings down the stretch with the Phillies, though, running up a 17:4 K/BB ratio and allowing just three earned runs.

Now an eight-year MLB veteran, the 33-year-old has compiled quite an impressive track record. Through 376 2/3 career innings, the soft-tossing Vincent carries a 3.32 ERA. While teams haven’t been willing to stake much on a continuation of that performance level, he’s certainly a nice player to have on hand for this level of commitment.

Pirates Sign Derek Holland

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The Pirates have a minor-league deal with southpaw Derek Holland, per Rob Biertempfel of The Athletic (via Twitter). Holland had hinted at the signing on social media.

Financial details aren’t known. But Holland will compete in camp for a spot on the MLB roster and gets a chance to opt out if he isn’t added for the start of the season.

The division-rival Cubs had declined an option over Holland at season’s end. It was a rough overall campaign — whether working from the rotation or in relief, and both before and after the Giants traded him to Chicago. Holland ended the year with 84 1/3 innings of 6.08 ERA ball. That’s now the second time in three campaigns that Holland has allowed more than six earned per nine.

For both Holland and the Bucs, the idea will be to help him rediscover the form he showed in a successful 2018 season. He worked to a 3.87 ERA in 171 1/3 frames that year, carrying 8.9 K/9 against 3.5 BB/9.

It remains to be seen what sort of role Holland will occupy. Even if he’s given a chance to compete for a rotation spot in camp, he may end up being tasked with entering from the pen. Notably, Holland posted extreme platoon splits last year (.997 OPS for right-handed hitters vs. .528 OPS for left-handed hitters).

First and foremost, Holland will need to nail down an approach. He continued the ramped-up slider usage he utilized in 2018, then made a drastic mid-season fastball swap (from his four-seamer to his sinker). That did coincide with improved results for most of Holland’s time with the Cubs, but his numbers were irreparably marred when he coughed up seven earned in just two frames in his last appearance of the season.

Curtis Granderson Announces Retirement

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Long-time big-league slugger Curtis Granderson announced today in an Instagram post that he is wrapping up his playing career. The 38-year-old appeared in 16 MLB campaigns.

Granderson had hoped to keep playing, but wasn’t finding interest on the open market. He had struggled in what turned out to be his final season in the majors, slashing just .183/.281/.356 last year with the Marlins.

Plenty of great careers have come to a conclusion in similar fashion. What’s more remarkable is that Granderson was still quite a productive hitter in the season prior. He turned in 403 plate appearances of .242/.351/.431 hitting with 13 home runs in 2018 with the Blue Jays and Brewers.

Granderson turned in plenty of strong campaigns along the way. But more than that, he became one of the game’s most respected players, both inside and outside of the clubhouse. (See, for instance, here and here.)

On the field, the gregarious former third-round pick was an evolving but ever-present threat. It’s easy to forget just how good he was at his best. With the Tigers in 2007, his second full season in the bigs, Granderson launched 23 long balls, swiped 26 bags, and turned in other-worldly glovework and overall baserunning to post a 7.9 fWAR campaign.

Granderson was no longer as capable with the glove by the time he landed with the Yankees in a three-team stunner, but he still turned in a 6.9 fWAR effort in 2011. That year, Granderson hit more than forty homers for the first of two consecutive seasons, turned in a personal-best 146 wRC+, and continued to provide big value with his legs (including 25 steals).

When Granderson signed with the Mets in 2014, he was coming off of an injury-marred season. At 33 years of age, his four-year, $60MM contract came with some obvious risks. But Granderson turned in four rather productive seasons under the deal, including a star-level 2015 effort (131 wRC+, 5.3 fWAR), and easily justified the financial outlay.

Granderson enjoyed three fairly lengthy stints to begin his career, authoring productive, 500+ game runs with the Tigers, Yankees, Mets. An August 2017 trade to the Dodgers launched a journeyman stage that eventually took him through Toronto, Milwaukee, and Miami.

Add it all up, and Granderson tallied more than two thousand big-league games with seven organizations. Half of his 16 campaigns ended in postseason runs. Granderson slashed only .224/.317/.424 in 244 playoff plate appearances, but was at his best in the 2015 World Series (3 home runs, 1.060 OPS in 25 plate appearances). He is a lifetime .249/.337/.465 hitter with 344 home runs; he appeared in three All-Star games and accumulated 47.6 fWAR and 47.3 rWAR.

Quite an impressive run, all things considered — all the more when his charitable efforts are added to the equation. It’s not clear precisely what’s next for Granderson, but it seems sure we haven’t seen the last of him. As he notes in his announcement:

“As I close out this wonderful chapter in my life and step away from my days on the field, I know that my role in this game is only just getting started. I look forward to continuing my work helping to diversify the sport, paving the way for young kids to learn and grow.”

MLBTR offers its congratulations and best wishes to Grandy and his family.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Minor MLB Transactions: 1/30/20

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The latest minor transactions from around the majors…

  • The Athletics announced the signing of right-hander Shohei Tomioka to a minor league pact earlier this week. The agreement doesn’t include an invitation to major league spring training, per John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle. The 23-year-old Tomioka is coming over from Japan, where he pitched with an independent-level team – not in the country’s top league, Nippon Professional Baseball. He owns a four-pitch repertoire and can hit 92-95 mph with his fastball, according to Shea.
  • The Padres have signed left-hander Hector Hernandez to a minor league contract, Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweets. He’ll be at minors camp for the Padres. The 28-year-old Hernandez is a veteran of three MLB organizations (the Cardinals, Diamondbacks and Indians) who debuted in the pro ranks back in 2009 but still hasn’t reached the bigs. To this point, Hernandez has maxed out at the Triple-A level, though he has only thrown 9 1/3 innings there. Hernandez spent the majority of last year as a member of the Indians’ High-A affiliate, with which he amassed 44 2/3 frames of 2.22 ERA pitching and posted 10.07 K/9 against 3.02 BB/9.

Tigers Re-Sign Jordy Mercer

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4:33PM: The Tigers have officially announced the signing.

2:35PM: The Tigers have brought back veteran shortstop Jordy Mercer on a new contract, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports (Twitter link).  The deal is a minor league pact with an invitation to Detroit’s big league Spring Training camp, as per Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press (via Twitter).

After signing a one-year, $5.25MM deal with the Tigers last winter, Mercer hit .270/.310/.438 over 271 plate appearances, despite missing much of the first half of the season with quad injuries.  That roughly matches the .256/.316/.383 slash line Mercer posted over the first 2996 PA of his career from 2012-18 as a member of the Pirates, and he’ll now head back to the Motor City as a depth option.

Niko Goodrum is currently Detroit’s top choice at shortstop, though given Goodrum’s multi-positional versatility and the presence of both younger Willi Castro and now Mercer, the Tigers are arming themselves with some extra depth should they decide to again move Goodrum around the diamond.  The 33-year-old Mercer gives the Tigers more veteran experience in that regard, as Castro has only 30 MLB games under his belt.  Beyond just shortstop, Mercer could also back up elsewhere around the infield, as he has some experience as a first, second, and third baseman over his career.

Rangers Sign Derek Law To Minors Contract

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The Rangers have signed right-hander Derek Law to a minor league deal, as per a team press release.  Law will receive an invitation to the team’s Major League Spring Training camp.

The Blue Jays non-tendered Law in December rather than go through the arbitration process with the 29-year-old.  MLBTR’s Matt Swartz projected Law to receive a $1.3MM arbitration salary in 2020, coming on a heels of a 2019 campaign that saw Law post a 4.90 ERA, 9.9 K/9, and 1.68 K/BB rate over 60 2/3 innings for Toronto.  It marked Law’s heaviest workload since his 2016 rookie season, though he has been an inconsistent performer since that breakout campaign, with a 5.25 ERA and 1.2 HR/9 over 111 1/3 innings since the start of the 2017 season.

On the plus side for Law is a solid 94.7mph fastball and his 50% grounder rate last season, his highest since that 2016 rookie year.  There isn’t much risk for Texas in seeing what Law can do in camp as the Rangers continue to amass more bullpen depth.  Law joins Luis Garcia, Nick Goody, Juan Nicasio, Joely Rodriguez, Brian Flynn, and Jimmy Herget as experienced relief options who will be battling for jobs on the Opening Day roster.

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