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Mariners Extend Marco Gonzales

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February 4: Gonzales will receive a $1MM signing bonus and be paid salaries of $5MM in 2021, $5.5MM in 2022, $6.5MM in 2023 and $12MM in 2024, tweets Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. There’s no buyout on the $15MM option for the 2025 season.

February 3: The Mariners have announced a contract extension with southpaw Marco Gonzales. He’s now guaranteed $30MM from 2021 through 2024, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweets. The deal includes a $15MM club option for another campaign, per MLB Network’s Jon Heyman (Twitter link).

Though it has been a fairly quiet winter for the Seattle organization, the club has now managed to strike two notable long-term deals. The other was a surprising pre-debut pact with first base prospect Evan White.

Gonzales, who was already under contract for the 2020 season, had been on track to qualify for arbitration next winter. He’d have reached the open market at the end of the 2023 campaign. Instead, the M’s have now secured his services for one would-be free agent campaign while picking up an option for another.

As he’s now closing in on his 28th birthday, Gonzales will now be under team control through his age-33 campaign. Given the costs involved, it was a pretty easy bet for the team to make. And it’s equally understandable that the CAA Sports client was interested in locking in earnings at this stage of his career.

Gonzales has been quite effective since coming over from the Cardinals in a mid-2017 trade. Over the past two seasons, he has carried a 3.99 ERA over 369 2/3 innings with 7.1 K/9 and 2.1 BB/9. While there’s nothing especially about his stuff or his peripherals, Gonzales has successfully tamped down on the long ball and studiously avoided hard contact.

It’s certainly not the typical profile of an extension target. Gonzales sits in the 90 mph range with his fastballs and managed only a 7.9% swinging-strike rate last year. Neither is he a groundball monster. But he was able to keep hitters off balance by utilizing five pitches with equivalent frequency — none less than 15.9% of the time and none more than 24.1%.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Rangers Sign Greg Bird To Minor League Deal

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4:10pm: Texas has announced the deal.

2:26pm: The Rangers have agreed to a minor league contract with free-agent first baseman Greg Bird, per George A. King III of the New York Post (Twitter link). He’ll be in Major League camp as a non-roster invitee this spring.

Now 27 years old, Bird once looked to be a possible long-term answer for the Yankees at first base. His debut in 2015 produced a .261/.343/.529 slash and 11 homers in 178 plate appearances for the then-22-year-old, but his career has been ravaged by injuries since that time. Since that scintillating debut, Bird has suffered a torn labrum, undergone ankle surgery and missed significant time due to a tear in his plantar fascia. As a result, over the past four seasons, he’s been limited to a .194/.287/.388 slash in just 522 plate appearances.

That said, the Rangers’ own first base situation is hardly inspiring. They have a former top prospect of their own, Ronald Guzman, who has yet to deliver on his own potential. Joey Gallo has experience at the position but is being entrusted with outfield duties for the foreseeable future. Non-roster players like Sam Travis and Matt Duffy could also factor into the mix, as could infielder/outfielder Danny Santana, depending on what (if any) additional outfield moves the Rangers make between now and Opening Day.

Despite his lack of time on the field, Bird has racked up more than four years of Major League service time — much of it coming on the injured list. If he’s able to crack the Rangers’ roster and prove to be a serviceable option in 2020, he’d remain controllable through the 2021 season as an arbitration-eligible player.

Athletics To Sign Donnie Hart

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The Athletics have a minor-league deal with lefty Donnie Hart, per MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand (Twitter link). It includes an invitation to the MLB side of camp.

Hart, 29, has bounced around the league a bit since wrapping up a three-year stint with the Orioles. He has 89 innings of 3.13 ERA ball under his belt in the majors, but clubs obviously aren’t believers in his ability to sustain that kind of productivity.

Though he has never been much of a strikeout pitcher, Hart has drawn a healthy number of groundballs (54.1%) in the big leagues and upper minors alike. The soft-tossing southpaw also has traditionally avoided too much damage at the hands of home runs, which is a nice feature in this era.

Mike Dunn Announces Retirement

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Veteran southpaw Mike Dunn announced that he is finished with his playing days, as Bob Nightengale of USA Today conveyed via Twitter. The 34-year-old says he’s ready to spend more time with his family.

Dunn just wrapped up a three-year deal with the Rockies that didn’t quite turn out as planned. The typically hard-throwing lefty lost velocity out of the gates in Colorado and never really found his footing. He struggled with injuries over the final two seasons of the pact and wasn’t effective when he was on the mound. All told, Dunn managed only 85 innings of 5.93 ERA ball with the Rox.

There were plenty of good seasons before that, of course. Dunn was long a valuable performer for the Marlins during a six-year stint. He worked to a 3.59 ERA with 9.8 K/9 and 4.1 BB/9 over 328 frames in Miami.

Add it all up, including Dunn’s early-career stints with the Yankees and Braves, and he threw 436 total innings in the bigs. He allowed an even 4.00 ERA for his career. As you might expect, Dunn was generally quite a bit more effective against opposing lefties, holding them to a .232/.315/.353 cumulative batting line.

MLBTR extends its congratulations and best wishes to Dunn and his family.

Minor MLB Transactions: 2/3/20

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The latest minor moves from around baseball…

  • The Red Sox have outrighted hurler Denyi Reyes to Triple-A Pawtucket, per the International League transactions page. The club designated Reyes for assignment last week when it re-signed first baseman Mitch Moreland, but the right-hander will stay in the organization after clearing waivers. Reyes, 23, made his Double-A debut last season and pitched to a 4.16 ERA/3.69 FIP with 6.9 K/9 against 2.2 BB/9 over 151 1/3 innings and 26 appearances (all starts). When assessing Boston’s farm system in December, FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen and Kylie McDaniel wrote that Reyes could develop into an “emergency” starter type at the MLB level.

Marlins Sign Matt Joyce

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FEBRUARY 3: Joyce will earn $1.5MM with another $250K in available incentives based upon plate appearances, MLBTR’s Steve Adams reports on Twitter.

JANUARY 30: Joyce’s deal is a Major League contract, Heyman tweets.

JANUARY 26: The Marlins have agreed to terms with free agent corner outfielder Matt Joyce, reports Jon Heyman of MLB Network (via Twitter). He is represented by ACES. Terms of the deal remain unclear.

Matt Joyce | Jason Getz-USA TODAY Sports

Joyce, 35, has had a series of up-and-down performances the past few seasons. A productive hitter for the Rays from 2010-14, Joyce was traded to the Angels prior to the 2015 season. He endured a miserable season in Anaheim before an offensive rebirth with the Pirates the following year. He continued that strong showing with the the A’s in 2017, where he amassed a career-high 544 plate appearances of .243/.335/.473 hitting (117 wRC+). After a down 2018 season in Oakland, though, Joyce was forced to settle for a pair of minor-league contracts last offseason.

The Giants, who signed Joyce to the second of those minor-league deals, traded him to Atlanta just before the start of the season. The Braves quickly selected him to their active roster, and they were rewarded with yet another bounceback year at the plate. In 238 plate appearances, Joyce put up a .295/.408/.450 line with seven home runs.

As that plate appearance figure suggests, Joyce was used judiciously by Braves’ manager Brian Snitker. He started just 34 games (thirty in right field, four in left). He was much more prominently used as a bench bat, pinch hitting 85 times. He wasn’t especially productive as a pinch hitter (and hasn’t been throughout his career), but he was stellar when trusted to start games.

Joyce is almost exclusively a platoon player. He has just a .188/.272/.309 career line against left-handed pitching, and he totaled all of 26 plate appearances against southpaws last season. He’s got a career .252/.354/.452 (122 wRC+) mark against right-handers and is coming off a season in which he was even better than that. Clearly, the Fish believe he can still serve as a quality hitter if put in the right role.

The Marlins’ corner outfield mix is promising but uncertain. Fellow free agent signee Corey Dickerson will surely get a long leash, but he’s coming off an injury-riddled 2019 season. Miami plans to move Jonathan Villar around the diamond. He’s also an option on the dirt and could speculatively be given a look in center, too, given his athleticism.

That likely leaves Garrett Cooper and Harold Ramírez as Joyce’s primary competition for at-bats. Both hit right-handed, making Joyce a potential platoon partner. (Both Cooper and Ramírez have been better without the platoon advantage to this point in their careers, although that tends to reverse itself over a larger sample size). Joyce has never played first base, but it’s at least possible (speculatively speaking) to imagine him occasionally spelling the right-handed Jesús Aguilar there as well. At the least, he figures to give manager Don Mattingly a deeper, more balanced bench as the Marlins continue to improve around the margins in hopes of being more competitive in 2020.

Diamondbacks Sign Jon Jay, Edwin Jackson

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The Diamondbacks have announced minor-league deals with outfielder Jon Jay and righty Edwin Jackson. The club also confirmed previously reported signings of John Hicks and Trayce Thompson.

All four veterans will be in MLB camp with the Snakes. It stands to reason that all will have some shot at earning a big-league job to open the season. The D-Backs will have a 26th roster spot to work with and could go in any number of directions to utilize it.

Jay, 34, is at his best a high-average hitter that can handle any outfield spot defensively. He’s looking for a bounceback after a rough 2019 season. While he swung a solidly above-average bat in his early days in the league, Jay has slashed just .271/.337/.348 since the start of the 2015 season. Jay would earn $1.5MM in the majors, with $1.75MM in possible incentives, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today (Twitter link).

The 36-year-old Jackson will regrettably not be competing in camp for a chance to extend his MLB record of pitching with 14 different organizations. He spent time with Arizona back in 2010. Jackson had a brutal 9.58 ERA in 67 2/3 big-league frames last year, but was able to spin 92 innings of 3.33 ERA ball in the season prior. The D-Backs won’t expect much, but can hope that Jackson represents rotation depth and perhaps a long relief option.

Marlins Designate Jarlin Garcia, Jose Quijada

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The Marlins announced today that they have designated southpaws Jarlin Garcia and Jose Quijada for assignment. Their roster spots will go to Brandon Kintzler and Matt Joyce, whose signings are now official (see here and here).

Young hurlers continue to fly off the Miami 40-man roster. The club vowed to compile a strike-throwing relief corps entering the 2020 season, but it remains surprising to see so many pitchers flowing out — most of them to this point landing on other MLB rosters via claim or trade.

Garcia, 27, is entering his final pre-arbitration season after working to a 3.02 ERA over 50 2/3 innings in 2019. He managed only 6.9 K/9 against 2.8 BB/9, but did post a 46.9% groundball rate and had success at preventing home runs (0.71 per nine, 7.8% HR/FB). Garcia was exceptionally difficult for MLB hitters to square up; he held them to a 31.8% hard-hit rate that sat in the 84th percentile among pitchers leaguewide.

The 24-year-old Quijada had struggled quite a bit last year in his first taste of the majors. He was bombed for a 5.76 ERA in 29 2/3 innings, allowing 10 long balls on a whopping 34.5% HR/FB rate. But Quijada also showed he could get MLB hitters to swing and miss, as he has in the upper minors, by producing a 14.0% swinging-strike rate.

Mariners Designate Matt Festa For Assignment

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The Mariners announced Monday that they’ve designated right-hander Matt Festa for assignment. His spot on the 40-man roster will go to outfielder Jose Siri, whose previously reported waiver claim out of the Reds organization has now been formally announced by Seattle.

Festa, 27 next month, has pitched 30 2/3 innings of relief with the Mariners over the past two seasons, logging a 4.70 ERA with a 25-to-14 K/BB ratio and a 36.5 percent ground-ball rate along the way. Seattle initially selected him in the seventh round of the 2016 draft.

Festa has enjoyed solid numbers in Double-A and Triple-A, albeit in limited samples of work. The East Stroudsberg University product pitched to a 2.76 ERA with 12.3 K/9 against 2.2 BB/9 in 49 innings in 2018 before logging a 2.64 ERA, 9.7 K/9 and 4.1 BB/9 in 30 2/3 Triple-A frames in 2019. Festa doesn’t throw particularly hard (93 mph average four-seamer) and doesn’t have the type of gaudy spin rates that attract some clubs to pitchers who lack premium velocity. His success in the upper minors and the fact that he has a minor league option year remaining, however, could earn him a look with another club.

The Mariners will have a week to trade Festa, place him on outright waivers or release him.

Giants, Brandon Guyer Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Giants have agreed to a minor league contract with veteran outfielder Brandon Guyer, tweets USA Today’s Bob Nightengale. The ACES client would earn $1MM upon making the big league roster, but won’t open up in MLB camp, per Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic (via Twitter).

The 2019 season marked the first time since 2013 that Guyer didn’t appear in the Majors. He might’ve eventually had that chance on a then-rebuilding White Sox roster, but the now-34-year-old Guyer opened the season in Triple-A Charlotte and spent most of the year on the injured list.

Guyer hasn’t had a full, productive season in the big leagues since 2016 and has long been something of a specialty player. The right-handed-hitting veteran has traditionally struggled against right-handed pitching but has tormented lefties with a .274/.375/.448 slash (130 wRC+) in 793 plate appearances. Guyer thrives at getting on base when holding the platoon advantage, in no small part due to his league-leading penchant for getting hit by pitches (as explored at great length by FanGraphs’ August Fagerstrom back in 2016).

Giants fans have been expecting some outfield additions since president of baseball ops Farhan Zaidi said last week that deepening that mix was a priority. While this move probably isn’t as exciting as anything Giants fans might’ve hoped for, Guyer’s right-handed bat would seemingly pair well with a heavily left-handed outfield mix — Alex Dickerson, Steven Duggar and Mike Yastrzemski — if he makes the team.

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