International Transactions: 12/27/20
The latest international signings involving former big leaguers:
- The CTBC Brothers of Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League are nearing an agreement with right-hander Gabriel Ynoa, reports Daniel Kim of ESPN (Twitter link). The 27-year-old saw action in parts of three big league seasons with the Mets and Orioles, tossing a career-high 110.2 innings for Baltimore in 2019. Ynoa has a career 5.39 ERA and a matching FIP in his big league time. He spent last season with the Yakult Swallows of Nippon Professional Baseball but posted only a 10.13 ERA in 24 innings at Japan’s highest level.
- The CPBL’s Wei Chuan Dragons announced the signings of right-handers Junichi Tazawa, Jake Brigham and Drew Gagnon, as well as utilityman Rosell Herrera (h/t to CPBL Stats). Tazawa was once a notable set-up piece in Boston and logged eight big league seasons between the Red Sox, Marlins and Angels. Brigham’s MLB experience consisted of 12 games with the 2015 Braves; he’d spent the past four seasons in the Korea Baseball Organization. Gagnon threw 35.2 innings of 7.32 ERA ball with the 2018-19 Mets before heading to the KBO last season. Herrera played for the Reds, Royals and Marlins in 2018-19 and hit .225/.286/.316. As an expansion franchise, the Dragons are allowed five foreign-born players next season instead of the customary three. (Right-hander Bryan Woodall signed as the fifth foreign player).
Rangers To Sign Kohei Arihara
TODAY: MLB Insider Jon Heyman provided some clarification as to the financial specifics today (via Twitter). As presumed yesterday, the posting fee will amount to $1.24MM, while the Rangers will pay out $6.2MM over the course of the two-year contract. Arihara will make $2.6MM in 2021 and $3.6MM in 2022, adds MLB.com’s TR Sullivan (via Twitter).
Dec. 25: The Rangers are in agreement with right-hander Kohei Arihara, reports Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic (Twitter link). It’s a two-year contract in the $6-7MM range, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (via Twitter).
Arihara, 28, has spent the past six seasons with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters of Nippon Professional Baseball. In 836 career innings at Japan’s highest level, Arihara compiled a 3.74 ERA with 6.7 K/9 against 2.1 BB/9. He has been especially productive over the past two years. Arihara posted a minuscule 2.46 ERA with a career-best 8.8 K/9 in 2019. This past season, he managed a 3.46 mark with 7.2 K/9 across 132.2 innings.
Writing for Baseball America on the heels of Arihara’s peak season in 2019, Jason Coskrey noted that the right-hander works in the low-90’s and primarily leans upon his fastball, changeup and slider. Arihara has up to seven distinct pitches in his arsenal, though, and Coskrey notes he’s adept at using his secondaries to keep opposing hitters off balance. He also has a long history of throwing strikes, not having issued more than 2.2 walks per nine innings pitched in any of his last five NPB seasons.
Arihara’s not known for especially overpowering raw stuff, and that’s been borne out in his relatively low strikeout rates. Shun Yamaguchi, who signed a similar contract with the Blue Jays last offseason, consistently posted heftier strikeout totals over his time in Japan than did Arihara. So too has Tomoyuki Sugano, the higher-profile NPB starter available to MLB teams via the posting system this winter. That could suggest Arihara’s more suited for the back of the rotation, although he figures to have a decent opportunity for innings in Texas.
Kyle Gibson and Jordan Lyles will presumably try to bounce back from dismal 2020 seasons. Dane Dunning will certainly get a rotation job after coming over from the White Sox in the Lance Lynn trade. There’s a lot of uncertainty beyond (and even among) that trio, though. Kolby Allard was knocked around last season and hasn’t yet established himself as a big league caliber starter. Kyle Cody, who never worked more than five innings, was the only other player still on the roster to start multiple games for Texas last season.
In addition to Arihara’s salary, the Rangers will owe the Fighters a release fee under the terms of the MLB-NPB posting system. The Fighters will receive a sum equal to 20 percent of the contract value. Depending upon the contract’s specific terms, that would put the posting fee in the $1.2MM – 1.4MM range. Texas’ total outlay is around $7.5MM, hears Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News (via Twitter).
The Red Sox and Padres were reportedly the other finalists in the bidding for Arihara, whose posting window was set to expire tomorrow. San Diego and Boston will now have to turn elsewhere in their hunt for additional rotation depth.
Rangers Designate Art Warren For Assignment
The Texas Rangers announced the signing of Kohei Arihara today, inking the right-hander to a two-year, $6.2MM contract after paying a $1.24MM posting fee to Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters. In a corresponding move, the Rangers have designated right-hander Art Warren for assignment, notes Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News (via Twitter).
Warren, 27, was claimed off waivers from the Mariners just after the 2020 season. He didn’t appear for the Mariners this season after making six scoreless appearances in 2019. Prior to making his Major League debut that season, Warren posted a sterling 1.71 ERA across 29 appearances totaling 31 2/3 innings in Double-A. He recorded 15 saves while finishing 22 games and showing swing-and-miss potential with 11.7 K/9.
While Warren will be 28 years old for the 2021 season, a 95 mph fastball and wipe-out slider provide Warren with enough firepower to make a front office curious. The Ohio native has done enough since being drafted in the 23rd round out of Ashland University to get a look somewhere next season. If he’s not claimed, the Rangers would likely gladly keep him in the organization.
Fernando Romero Signs With NPB’s Yokohama BayStars
DECEMBER 25: The BayStars have announced their agreement with Romero (h/t to the Japan Times). It’s a one-year deal with a club option for 2022. Romero will reportedly make $724,000 next season.
DECEMBER 18, 7:03pm: Romero will sign with the Yokohama BayStars of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, Dan Hayes of The Athletic tweets. The Twins will receive roughly $300K in return.
DECEMBER 18, 4:15pm: The Twins activated right-hander Fernando Romero from the restricted list and then released him, Chris Miller of the Star Tribune reports. Romero, who is from the Dominican Republic, was unable to secure a visa to the United States last season.
This is certainly not the way the Twins expected their relationship with Romero to end, as he was among their top prospects for multiple seasons. Baseball America ranked Romero as the Twins’ sixth-best farmhand in 2018 and wrote that he could turn into a second or third starter “if he can round out his third pitch.”
The 25-year-old Romero did collect 11 starts with the Twins from 2018-19, during which he averaged about 96 mph on his fastball, but the results weren’t great. He combined for 69 2/3 innings during those seasons and recorded a 5.17 ERA/4.49 FIP with 8.14 K/9, 3.88 BB/9 and a 47.4 percent groundball rate. Romero has been better in Triple-A ball, where he owns a 3.88 ERA and has registered 8.0 K/9 against 3.7 BB/9 in 148 1/3 innings. It’s likely some other team will take a chance on him now that he’s available to sign.
Adeiny Hechavarria Signs With NPB’s Chiba Lotte Marines
Infielder Adeiny Hechavarría has agreed to a deal with the Chiba Lotte Marines of Nippon Professional Baseball, the team announced yesterday (h/t to the Japan Times). It’s a one-year deal worth a reported $970,000.
Hechavarría, 31, has appeared in the big leagues in each of the last nine years. Signed out of Cuba by the Blue Jays, he made his MLB debut with Toronto in 2012. That November, Hechavarría was part of the twelve-player blockbuster that sent José Reyes and Mark Buehrle to the Jays. He spent the next four seasons as the Marlins’ regular shortstop. He never hit for power or drew many walks, but Hechavarría made a lot of contact and rated as a plus defender at the position. As he got into his late-20’s, he became something of a journeyman depth infielder. Over the past four years, Hechavarría has suited up for the Marlins, Rays, Pirates, Yankees, Mets and Braves. He has slashed .251/.289/.387 with 23 home runs over 953 plate appearances in that time.
Last season, Hechavarría only picked up 63 plate appearances with Atlanta. He was left off the playoff roster during their run to the NLCS and became a free agent after the season.
International Signings: Alcantara, Overton
A pair of former big leaguers have signed with teams in Asia over the past few days.
- Right-hander Raúl Alcántara is joining the Hanshin Tigers of Nippon Professional Baseball, per a team announcement. The 28-year-old will be making his first trip to Japan’s highest level; he has spent the past two seasons in the Korea Baseball Organization. After posting solid but unspectacular numbers with the KT Wiz in 2019, Alcántara found a new gear this past season. Over 198.2 innings with the Doosan Bears in 2020, he worked to a 2.54 ERA with 8.2 K/9 against 1.4 BB/9. That earned him the Choi Dong-Won Award as the KBO’s top pitcher and sufficiently impressed the Tigers to bring him aboard. Alcántara’s big league experience consists of 46.1 innings of 7.19 ERA/7.45 FIP ball with the 2016-17 Athletics.
- One of Alcántara’s former teammates in Oakland, Dillon Overton, also secured a job overseas. He signed with the Rakuten Monkeys of Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League, the club announced. A former A’s second-rounder, Overton combined for a 9.13 ERA/7.74 FIP across 47.1 MLB innings with Oakland and Seattle from 2016-17. The 29-year-old southpaw spent the 2018-19 seasons in the high minors with the Padres but didn’t make it back to the highest level. This will be his first season in a foreign pro league.
CPBL’s Fubon Guardians Sign Hector Noesi
Right-hander Hector Noesi has signed with the Fubon Guardians of the Chinese Professional Baseball League, the team announced. (Hat tip to the CPBL Stats page.) Apple Daily was the first to break news of the agreement, and media outlet EToday reported that Noesi will earn roughly $500K for the 2021 season.
Noesi is a veteran of six MLB seasons, tossing 395 1/3 innings with four different teams (mostly the White Sox and Mariners) from 2011-15 before resurfacing with the Marlins in 2019. Noesi posted an 8.46 ERA over 27 2/3 innings with Miami, bringing his career Major League resume to a 5.51 ERA, 1.89 K/BB rate, and 6.4 K/9 over 423 total frames. Noesi signed a minor league deal with the Pirates last winter but chose to opt out of the 2020 season.
In between being let go by the White Sox and returning to the Marlins, Noesi spent three seasons in the KBO League, so he already has some significant experience pitching outside of North American baseball. Noesi had 3.79 ERA, 3.22 K/BB rate, and 6.6 K/9 over 582 1/3 innings (all as a starting pitching) for the Kia Tigers, so this could provide some idea of what Noesi can bring to the Guardians heading into his age-34 season.
KBO’s Kia Tigers Sign Daniel Mengden
Right-hander Daniel Mengden has signed with the Kia Tigers of the Korea Baseball Organization, the team announced (hat tip to MyKBO.net’s Dan Kurtz). The one-year contract will pay Mengden $425K in salary, a $300K signing bonus, and up to $275K in incentives.
The 27-year-old elected to become a free agent after he was outrighted off the Athletics’ 40-man roster following the season. Mengden only threw 12 1/3 innings in 2020 after recovering from elbow surgery in February, two offseason surgeries to address an intestinal problem, and then a positive COVID-19 diagnosis in early September.
Originally a fourth-round pick for the Astros in the 2014 draft, Mengden was dealt to the A’s as part of the Scott Kazmir trade in July 2015 and he has gone on to spend his entire MLB career in an Oakland uniform. After a pretty rough 2016 rookie season, Mengden has a 4.06 ERA, 2.22 K/BB rate, and 6.0 K/9 over 230 2/3 innings for the A’s since the start of the 2017 campaign, starting 34 of 46 games. Neither a big strikeout pitcher or a grounder specialist, Mengden relies on a lot of soft contact, which has led to decent bottom-line results even if advanced metrics aren’t fond of his work.
Mengden becomes the latest experienced big leaguer to head to the KBO League for a better guarantee of both money and playing time, rather than test a very uncertain North American market. He’ll join former A’s teammate Aaron Brooks on the Tigers roster, as Brooks recently re-signed for a second season with the Gwangju-based team.
Pirates Trade Josh Bell To Nationals
The Nationals have a new first baseman. In an out-of-the-blue Christmas Eve swap, Washington has acquired Josh Bell from the Pirates in exchange for right-handed pitchers Wil Crowe and Eddy Yean, according to announcements from both clubs.
Bell, 28, fills the Nationals’ void at first base and gives the club a switch-hitting power bat to pair with Juan Soto in the heart of the order. Like most of the Pirates’ lineup, Bell struggled in 2020, hitting just .226/.305/.364 with a career-high 26.5 percent strikeout rate. However, outside of last year’s shortened season, Bell has been a productive big league hitter throughout his career.
The Pirates selected Bell with the 61st overall pick in 2011 and paid him a then-record $5MM signing bonus, shattering the recommended slot value to convince Bell to forgo his college commitment. The 6’4″ slugger rated as one of the game’s top prospects throughout his minor league tenure and was a productive hitter each season from 2016-18, posting a combined .260/.348/.436 batting line — good for a 110 wRC+ (put another way: overall production that was 10 percent better than a league-average hitter).
In 2019, Bell erupted with a breakout, 37-homer campaign that led to his first All-Star nod. Tapping into the raw power for which he’d long been touted, Bell raked at a .277/.367/.569 clip, adding in 37 doubles and three triples while plating 116 runs in just 143 games played. It’s worth noting that he tailed off in the second half, and those struggles carried over into the aforementioned down year in 2020. The Nats are buying in the belief that Bell can be much closer to that 2019 All-Star who looked to be emerging as one of the league’s premier power bats.
Bell is eligible for arbitration for the second time this winter and has yet to settle on a salary for the 2021 campaign. He’s owed a raise on last year’s $4.8MM salary and is now under Nationals control through the 2022 season
The Bell acquisition gives the Nats an everyday option at first base, which could complicate any potential reunion with Ryan Zimmerman, although the two could certainly form a quality pairing at the position. Although Bell is a switch-hitter, he’s vastly better from the left side of the dish, so if the Nats want to bring Zimmerman back for a 16th season, “Mr. National” could move into a bench role and spell Bell against tougher lefties. Of course, if the National League brings back the designated hitter for the 2021 season, Bell could fill that role full-time for the Nats. That could be a best-case scenario for Washington, as Bell is regarded as a well below-average defender at his position.
In return for two years of Bell, the Pirates will net an immediate rotation piece in the 26-year-old Crowe — a former second-round pick himself (2017). The 6’2″, 228-pound Crowe made his big league debut in 2020, starting three games for the Nats but being tagged for 11 runs in 8 1/3 innings. That’s a minuscule sample on which to judge Crowe, however. The right-hander has been considered one of the Nats’ best prospects since the day he was drafted. While he’s had knee and elbow injuries in the past — including Tommy John surgery while pitching at the University of South Carolina — he set career-highs in starts (26) and innings (149 1/3) during his last full season in 2019.
Baseball America recently ranked Crowe 10th among Nationals farmhands, and was the team’s No. 3 prospect at MLB.com on their midseason rankings and No. 4 at FanGraphs. Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel wrote in that FanGraphs report that Crowe has three above-average pitches and a promising changeup but “imprecise control” of his arsenal and some durability concerns because of that injury track record. Crowe was hammered for a 6.17 ERA in his lone Triple-A experience, although that came while pitching in an outrageously hitter-friendly setting in 2019 — both due to the juiced ball in Triple-A and the conditions of Fresno’s park in the Pacific Coast League.
It remains to be seen whether the Pirates will plug Crowe directly into the rotation or give him some additional time in Triple-A in 2021, but it’d be a surprise if he weren’t called to the big leagues at some point next season. Pittsburgh currently projects to have Joe Musgrove, Mitch Keller, Steven Brault, Chad Kuhl and a returning Jameson Taillon in its rotation, though Musgrove, Brault and Kuhl have all been discussed in trade talks as well. Further transactions between now and Opening Day could very well to alter that composition to some extent.
The 19-year-old Yean is a much longer-term play for the Pirates, although it’s arguable that he’s the more appealing piece of the deal. Baseball America’s updated ranking of the Nationals’ farm has Yean two spots higher than Crowe, touting an “explosive” fastball that reaches 97 mph and could climb higher as he continues to grow. Yean throws both a four-seamer and two-seamer in addition to a slider and a changeup. Signed out of the Dominican Republic in 2018, Yean has the type of velocity, breaking ball and projectable frame typical of first- and second-round high school draftees, Longenhagen wrote for his Nats rankings at FanGraphs.
The Bell trade could be the first of several for the rebuilding Pirates this winter. Musgrove remains one of the more appealing arms who could change hands this offseason, and any of Brault, Kuhl, reliever Richard Rodriguez, catcher Jacob Stallings and second baseman Adam Frazier stand out as viable trade pieces. No one in the NL Central is making an aggressive push to seize the division crown, but the Pirates are the only one of the quintet who are in the midst of a full-scale rebuild. Further change is surely on the horizon under second-year general manager Ben Cherington.
The Nats, meanwhile, still have work to do. Adding a corner outfielder, at least one back-of-the-rotation starter — particularly now that they’ve subtracted Crowe from the mix — and perhaps an upgrade at catcher could all be on the horizon for GM Mike Rizzo and his staff as the Nats look to get back to their winning ways in 2021.
Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette first reported that the two teams were closing in on a trade. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that an agreement of Bell for two young pitchers had been reached. MLB Network’s Jon Heyman added the names of the two pitchers going to Pittsburgh.
Reds Sign Edgar Garcia To Major League Contract
The Reds have signed right-hander Edgar Garcia, Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer reports. It’s a major league deal, per Mark Sheldon of MLB.com. Garcia could earn a $600K salary if he makes the Reds’ roster, according to Nightengale.
The Rays non-tendered the 24-year-old Garcia earlier this month, which came not long after they acquired him from the Phillies in August. But Garcia failed to keep runs off the board in a small sample of work as a member of the Rays, with whom he yielded four ER on three hits (including two homers) and four walks in 3 1/3 innings.
Garcia saw much more action in 2019 with the Phillies, throwing 39 innings, but the results also weren’t great then. He ended the year with a 5.77 ERA/6.57 FIP and 10.38 K/9 against 6.0 BB/9.