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Blue Jays Sign Shun Yamaguchi

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TODAY: The Blue Jays’ deal with Yamaguchi is official.  They’ve signed the right-hander to a two-year, $6.35MM deal, per Scott Mitchell of TSN Sports (via Twitter).

3:35pm: There’s a deal in place, per Shi Davidi of Sportsnet.ca (via Twitter).

2:59pm: The Blue Jays appear to be pressing hard to add Japanese hurler Shun Yamaguchi. According to Sanspo.com (Japanese language link), the sides are closing in on a two-year deal that would pay him around $3MM annually if it’s finalized.

If the sides wrap things up, the Toronto organization will owe the Yomiuri Giants twenty percent of the total guarantee as a transfer fee. Japan’s marquee organization formally posted Yamaguchi on December 3rd.

Yamaguchi, a 32-year-old forkballer, has had plenty of success in Japan’s top league as both a starter and reliever. Once a star closer for the Yokohama BayStars, Yamaguchi has more recently taken the ball to open games for Yomiuri. Last year, working from the rotation, he delivered 170 frames of 2.91 ERA ball with 10.0 K/9 against 3.2 BB/9.

It stands to reason that the starter-needy Blue Jays will at least give Yamaguchi a shot at winning a rotation job out of camp. But the club could also certainly be in the market for relief help, so its intentions aren’t yet clear. Odds are the Jays are drawn in no small part to Yamaguchi’s versatility. He has plenty of experience locking up saves in NPB so could even ultimately be called upon in a high-leverage role if the circumstances warrant.

 

Phillies To Sign Christian Bethancourt

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The Phillies have agreed to a minors deal with catcher, etc. Christian Bethancourt, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today (via Twitter). It includes an invitation to participate in MLB camp.

Bethancourt came up as a rifle-armed catcher, but has been utilized in creative ways since cracking the majors back in 2014. The Padres put him in the outfield, at second base, and even on the mound. He has also seen professional action at first base.

That unique array of defensive capabilities makes Bethancourt an intriguing potential 26th man. While command problems make him little more than a mop-up man in a pitching capacity, his experience in that area adds at least some value.

Unfortunately, Bethancourt has never really come around with the bat. He owns a .222/.252/.316 slash in 489 plate appearances at the MLB level. And he was struggling against Korean pitching in 2019 before the KBO’s NC Dinos cut him loose mid-season.

If there’s an encouraging sign, it’s the thousand-plus plate appearances of .298/.326/.465 output Bethancourt has managed at Triple-A. As that slash hints, though, he’ll have to carry a hefty batting average and/or boost his power in order to hit at a palatable level in the majors, as Bethancourt has never drawn many walks.

Blue Jays Sign Hyun-Jin Ryu

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Two and a half months after GM Ross Atkins vowed to find pitching that could “contribute in significant ways,” the Blue Jays have formally announced the signing of one of the best pitchers on the market, left-hander Hyun-Jin Ryu, to a four-year contract. The Boras Corporation client will reportedly be guaranteed $80MM, which will be paid out evenly at $20MM per season. Ryu’s deal doesn’t have any opt-out provisions but is said to contain a partial no-trade clause.

The news ends a spirited market for Ryu’s services, as at least six teams (the Dodgers, Angels, Braves, Padres, Cardinals, and Twins) were all known to have some degree of interest in the southpaw this offseason.  While all of those teams were either playoff clubs in 2019 or are planning to contend in 2020, it was the rebuilding Blue Jays who made the big strike, signaling that their own effort to return to contention is coming sooner rather than later.  The Jays were known to be looking at both the top tier and the lower tiers of the pitching market, though the signing still comes as a surprise, given how Toronto’s previous acquisitions had been more modest.

Ryu joins Tanner Roark, Chase Anderson, and Shun Yamaguchi as newly-acquired members of Toronto’s rotation, completely overhauling a starting staff that was expected to be a major point of emphasis this winter.  Yamaguchi could wind up in the bullpen if the Jays go with some combination of in-house candidates Matt Shoemaker, Trent Thornton, Ryan Borucki, Anthony Kay, or Jacob Waguespack for the final two rotation places.  Star prospect Nate Pearson is also expected to make his big league debut at some point in 2020, so one of those rotation spots could ultimately be earmarked for him down the stretch, or the Jays could ease Pearson into the majors as a reliever.

While Pearson may be the ace of the future, Ryu is now firmly the ace of the present.  The lefty finished second in NL Cy Young Award voting last season on the heels of a league-best 2.32 ERA and 1.2 BB/9, as well as a 6.79 K/BB rate, 8.0 K/9, and 50.4% grounder rate.  ERA predictors weren’t quite as impressed (3.10 FIP, 3.32 xFIP, 3.77 SIERA) with Ryu’s performance, while his modest 90.6mph fastball finished in the bottom 11th percentile in both fastball velocity and spin rate.

On the plus side of the Statcast coin, Ryu was also one of the league’s best pitchers in limiting hard-hit balls and exit velocity, and his .263 wOBA was only slightly lower than his .281 xwOBA.  Despite the lack of fastball velocity, Ryu still had the 26th most effective heater of any qualified pitcher in the sport according to Fangraphs’ Pitch Value metrics, while his changeup was one of the ten most effective pitches in all of baseball in 2019.

Perhaps most importantly, Ryu also tossed 182 2/3 innings last year, his highest workload since his 2013 debut season in MLB and the first time he’d topped even the 126 2/3 inning plateau since 2014.  Ryu had only a couple of minimal injured list stints for minor neck and groin soreness in 2019, as opposed to the much more serious setbacks that plagued him earlier in his career.  Shoulder and elbow surgeries limited Ryu to just a single game in 2015-16, he missed close to three months in 2018 due to a torn groin, and IL stints for foot and hip problems limited him to 126 2/3 IP in 2017.

This injury history and Ryu’s age (he turns 33 in March) were reasons why MLBTR projected him to only land a three-year, $54MM deal, despite his superb 2019 campaign and his overall strong track record in 740 1/3 career innings in the majors.  The Blue Jays could have been compelled to go to four years to convince Ryu to join a team that didn’t offer as clear a path to immediate contention as some of his other suitors.

Even with Ryu signed, it remains to be seen if the Jays will emerge as a threat to return to the playoffs after three straight losing seasons.  The team will be counting on its young core of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Bo Bichette, Cavan Biggio, and Danny Jansen to all take steps forward, while more experienced hands like Randal Grichuk (who had been Toronto’s highest-paid player prior to the Ryu signing) and the newly-acquired Travis Shaw will need to improve on mediocre 2019 performances.

The Ryu signing also re-aligns expectations for the rest of the Jays’ offseason.  On paper, this could be Toronto’s version of the Cubs’ deal with Jon Lester prior to the 2015 season — the big-ticket veteran pitching acquisition that indicated the rebuilding Cubs had enough faith in their up-and-coming young team to go for it after a lengthy rebuild.  If the Jays are serious about challenging for the postseason as soon as 2020, more substantial veteran upgrades could be made to center field, the bullpen, the first base/DH mix beyond Shaw and Rowdy Tellez, or even the rotation.  Closer Ken Giles was widely assumed to be a trade candidate, but now the Blue Jays could perhaps keep Giles for the final year of his contract in order to keep the ninth inning locked down.

The Jays’ current 2020 payroll (as per Roster Resource) projects to be just under $122.2MM, so considering that the 2016-18 clubs all finished the season with payrolls in the $164MM-$167MM range, GM Ross Atkins could have more spending room for further moves.  Ryu is the third-highest contract even given out by the franchise, topped only by Vernon Wells’ $126MM extension in the 2006-07 offseason and the five-year, $82MM free agent deal for Russell Martin prior to the 2015 season.

Ryu is the latest arm to leave what has been a scorching hot market for free agent starting pitchers.  Returning to MLBTR’s Top 50 Free Agents list, Alex Wood (at #39) is now the highest-ranked starter still on the board, as the 14 pitchers ahead of him have all found new deals before Christmas.  As Heyman notes on Twitter, the many teams still looking for rotation upgrades could now be forced to explore the trade market, which could lead to a flurry of deals before Opening Day.

MLB Network’s Jon Heyman first reported the deal (Twitter link). MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez reported that Ryu would receive a partial no-trade clause. The Toronto Star’s Gregor Chsholm reported the annual breakdown.

Matt Moore Signs With NPB’s SoftBank Hawks

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11:00am: Moore is guaranteed $3.5MM on a one-year deal with the Hawks and can earn an additional $2.5MM via incentives, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports (Twitter link).

10:10am: Free-agent lefty Matt Moore has signed with the SoftBank Hawks of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, per a team announcement (link via the Japan Times). He’s represented by Apex Baseball.

The 30-year-old Moore appeared in just two games with the Tigers in 2019 before suffering a torn meniscus in his right knee which required surgery and ultimately knocked him out for the remainder of the year. A move to Japan is at least somewhat of a surprise for Moore — a formerly elite prospect who tossed 10 shutout innings with a 9-to-1 K/BB ratio and strong velocity (93.0 mph average fastball) in his tiny sample of 10 innings prior to last April’s injury.

Back in 2012, Moore was considered one of baseball’s three best prospects alongside Mike Trout and Bryce Harper. He may not quite have lived up to that sky-high billing early on, but Moore’s first 347 innings in the big leagues resulted in a 3.53 ERA with nearly a strikeout per frame. At the very least, he looked like a quality mid-rotation presence for the Rays, who selected him in the eighth round of the 2007 draft. And given that those numbers were compiled through his age-25 season, there was certainly some promise of a further breakout as he entered his prime years. Moore did, after all, finish ninth in AL Cy Young voting in an All-Star 2013 season that saw him toss 150 1/3 innings of 3.29 ERA ball.

Unfortunately for Moore, he suffered a torn UCL in 2014 that cost him most of that season and most of the 2015 campaign. He posted one solid, albeit unspectacular season upon returning from that injury before his struggles truly escalated; Moore logged a combined 5.99 ERA in 276 1/3 innings with 7.6 K/9 and 3.5 BB/9 between the Giants and Rangers from 2017-18.

In spite of that rough two-year patch, however, he was still able to land a one-year, $2.5MM pact with the Tigers last winter. Given his relative youth — he’ll turn 31 in June — and the fact that his velocity in two starts this past season was higher than it had been since 2012, Moore seemed like a reasonable low-risk rebound candidate this winter.

However, the interest overseas clearly produced a better offer than any MLB club was willing to put forth, so Moore will become the latest in an increasing number of players to look to bolster their stock while playing abroad. He’s a higher-profile name than most who wind up signing in NPB or the Korea Baseball Organization, but that only adds to the level of intrigue. It’s easy to envision that with a strong showing for the Hawks, Moore could reemerge as a coveted rotation option for Major League teams once he returns to the open market.

White Sox To Sign Edwin Encarnacion

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The White Sox have reached an agreement to sign veteran slugger Edwin Encarnacion, according to multiple reports. Dominican reporter Yancen Pujols tweets that the sides have agreed to a one-year, $12MM deal that includes a $1MM signing bonus and $11MM salary, pending a physical. The contract also comes with a $12MM club option, sans buyout, per Joel Sherman of the New York Post (on Twitter).

Encarnacion has been one of the game’s premier hitters since his breakout 2012 season. Though he stepped back a bit in 2018, he rebounded well in the just-completed campaign and proved he’s still capable of top-notch offensive production as he closes in on his 37th birthday.

Through 486 plate appearances over the 2019 season, Encarnacion swatted 34 long balls and slashed a healthy .244/.344/.531. That was about thirty percent above the league-average output at the plate. Encarnacion also spent a fair bit of time in the field, logging 489 innings at first base and grading within range of average with the glove.

For the South Siders, this move represents the latest addition in a busy offseason. Encarnacion will pair with Jose Abreu to form a veteran slugging duo. The latter will presumably take the lion’s share of the action at first base, but both can share the load there to stay fresh.

Whether or not the White Sox will look to keep adding bats isn’t known. The club has been tied to corner outfielders throughout the winter but has already made one move there in acquiring Nomar Mazara. With Abreu and Encarnacion likely to be in the lineup most days, and Eloy Jimenez occupying another corner outfield spot, it’d be surprising to see another high-dollar bat land in Chicago.

That’s all the more true since the White Sox catching situation seems to have some spillover. New addition Yasmani Grandal will likely spend some days at first or in the DH slot to ease his load, which will likely absorb most of the rest days for Encarnacion and Abreu. Backup receiver James McCann now seems all the more expendable, since there won’t be quite as many opportunities to deploy Grandal elsewhere.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Mets Sign Dellin Betances

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The Mets gave their fans a pleasant holiday surprise, announcing Tuesday that they’ve agreed to a one-year contract with free-agent right-hander Dellin Betances. The Excel Sports client will reportedly be guaranteed $10.5MM and secure a player option for the 2021 season in addition to  a vesting player option for the 2022 campaign.

Dellin Betances MLBTR

The contract is said to promise Betances a $7.5MM salary in 2020, and his player option is valued at $6MM with a $3MM buyout. However, he’ll have the opportunity to boost the value of that option and the potential 2022 option as well.

Specifically, the value of the 2020 option will escalate by $800K when Betances pitches in his 40th game in 2020. It’ll increase by an additional $1MM upon reaching each of 50, 60 and 70 games. As for the second player option, it would vest if Betances exercises the first player option and then appears in 50 games in 2021 — but only at a $1MM base. If Betances appears in 60 games, that base would jump to $2MM (with a $1MM buyout). It’d further increase to $3MM ($1MM buyout) by appearing in 70 games in 2021.

Generally speaking, the base values of Betances’ player options make it unlikely that he’ll be tempted to opt into the additional years of the contract unless he incurs an injury that would pretty severely hinder his earning power. In the event that Betances declines his initial player option at the end of the 2020 campaign, the Mets would have the opportunity to issue him a qualifying offer.

Betances, 32 in March, made four consecutive All-Star teams beginning with the 2014 season and was one of baseball’s most dominant ’pen options from 2014-18 while with the Yankees. Over that span of five years, the New York City native pitched to a pristine 2.22 ERA with a gaudy 14.6 K/9 mark against 3.9 BB/9. Despite pitching his home games in the launching pad that is Yankee Stadium, he averaged just 0.6 HR/9 in that time as well.

The stars looked to be aligning for Betances to cash in on a massive free-agent payday as a result of that half decade of dominance, but a shoulder impingement in Spring Training ultimately wiped out five months of Betances’ 2019 season. And when he was finally healthy enough to return, Betances suffered a partial tear of his left Achilles tendon in his first (and only) appearance of the season.

Those injuries notwithstanding, Betances entered the winter considered to be one of the best bounceback candidates on the free-agent market. Few, if any available relievers can match the upside that he brings to the table. His health troubles surely wiped out the possibility of a substantial three- or even four-year arrangement, but on a short-term pact, Betances has the potential to be one of the winter’s best bargains.

The Mets’ bullpen now features three relievers who, as recently as 2018, were widely considered to be among the game’s elite: Betances, Edwin Diaz and (perhaps to a lesser extent) Jeurys Familia. All three are in dire need of a rebound, but if that trio can come anywhere close to approximating the value it produced back in ’18, the Mets’ relief unit will be an overwhelming strength.

Righty Seth Lugo will give rookie manager Carlos Beltran a fourth high-end option, as he’s coming off a terrific 2.70 ERA and a 104-to-16 K/BB ratio through 80 innings of relief work himself. Lefty Justin Wilson, too, had a strong season — albeit in a more specialized role. Righties Brad Brach, Robert Gsellman and Michael Wacha are currently in line to round out what now looks like an experienced and potentially excellent Mets bullpen.

It wasn’t long ago that the Mets’ 2020 payroll looked to be up against ownership’s comfort threshold, but the recent restructuring of the final year of Yoenis Cespedes’ four-year contract surely gave the club some additional spending capacity. That grievance left the Mets with an additional $18.75MM in resources with which to work — an unexpected development that undoubtedly played a major role in paving the way for this deal.

Andy Martino of SNY first reported the deal (via Twitter). MLB Network’s Jon Heyman added that it was a one-year deal. ESPN’s Jeff Passan tweeted that Betances received two player options. Joel Sherman of the New York Post (Twitter links) and Anthony DiComo of MLB.com (Twitter link) added details on the option structures and incentives packages.

Mets Designate Sam Haggerty For Assignment

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The Mets announced Tuesday that they’ve designated infielder Sam Haggerty for assignment in order to open a spot on the 40-man roster for newly signed reliever Dellin Betances.

Haggerty, 25, made his MLB debut in 2019 but appeared in just 11 games and tallied only four plate appearances. A 24th-round pick by the Indians back in 2015, he made his way to the Mets alongside Walker Lockett last winter in the trade that sent catcher Kevin Plawecki to the Indians. Haggerty has played primarily second base in the minors but has experience all over the infield and outfield as well. He’s a .250/.371/.378 hitter in 155 games of Double-A ball and has batted .271/.358/.424 in a much smaller sample of 19 games in Triple-A.

Tyler Saladino Signs With KBO’s Samsung Lions

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The Samsung Lions of the Korea Baseball Organization have announced an agreement with infielder Tyler Saladino (hat tip to Dan Kurtz of MyKBO.net). The deal comes with a $700K salary, a $100K bonus and up to $100K in incentives.

The 30-year-old Saladino, a veteran of five major league seasons, will now ply his trade overseas after the Brewers jettisoned him earlier this month. Saladino had been projected to earn a relatively modest $1MM in arbitration in 2020, but the Brewers sent him to the free-agent market when they non-tendered him.

Saladino spent two years in Milwaukee, the first of which went OK (he slashed .246/.302/.398 in 130 plate appearances), but last season was nightmarish. Across 71 trips to the plate, Saladino only mustered a .123/.197/.215 line. However, Saladino was highly successful at the Triple-A level, where he batted .287/.384/.566 with 17 home runs in 310 PA. Even in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, his output checked in 27 percent above average, per FanGraphs’ wRC+ metric.

Before his stint with the Brewers organization, Saladino spent parts of four seasons with the White Sox, who used a seventh-round pick on him in 2010. He debuted in the majors in 2015 and has since hit .226/.278/.330 with 17 HRs and 28 steals in 1,064 trips to the plate at the game’s top level. He saw extensive action at three infield positions (third, short and second) before heading to Korea.

Astros Re-Sign Martin Maldonado

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DEC. 23: The signing is now official, Brian McTaggart of MLB.com was among those to tweet.

DEC. 20: The Astros have agreed to a two-year deal to bring back catcher Martin Maldonado, according to MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand (via Twitter). It includes a guaranteed $7MM for the MVP Sports Group client.

This is now the third time that the Astros have brought in Maldonado. After striking mid-season deals to acquire him in each of the past two campaigns, the Houston organization went ahead and committed to a full two-year term.

It’s possible the ’Stros are now set to move on from primary 2019 receiver Robinson Chirinos. The club already locked up Dustin Garneau to a cheap deal at the outset of the winter and has been looking for cost-efficient means of filling out a star-studded, increasingly expensive roster. Maldonado could’ve earned more from another team, per Feinsand, but preferred the comfort and opportunity available in Houston.

Maldonado, 33, has long been regarded as an excellent defender. The Baseball Prospectus grading system no longer values him as the top option behind the plate in all of baseball — as it did in 2017 — but still rates him as an above-average performer. Given today’s signing, and the evident interest from other clubs, it seems fair to presume that organizations around the game still hold Maldonado’s capabilities in the dark arts of catching in high esteem.

Achieving the benefits of Maldonado’s work on the defensive side of the spectrum has typically meant tolerating his efforts with the bat in hand. There have been a few relative peaks, but he has long been a subpar contributor on offense. Through over two thousand career plate appearances, Maldonado carries only a .219/.289/.355 batting line.

That’s more or less precisely what Maldonado did as a hitter in 2019. He finished with a 76 wRC+, just north of his lifetime 73 wRC+ mark. Maldonado did finish strong upon moving to the Astros, due largely to a power burst of questionable sustainability. Over 98 plate appearances in Houston, he slashed .202/.316/.464 with six home runs.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Yankees Trade Chance Adams To Royals

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1:20pm: The Yankees announced that they’ve acquired minor league shortstop Cristian Perez in exchange for Adams. The 21-year-old had a down season in his first year at Class-A Advanced in 2019, hitting .252/.290/.285 in 424 plate appearances.

Perez has never shown any semblance of power in the minors and doesn’t walk much. However, he’s consistently posted low strikeout rates and hit for a respectable average (career .263/.312/.319). Kiley McDaniel and Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs called him an “instinctive defender with some feel to hit” in their write-up of the Royals’ farm system early in the 2019 season.

1:01pm: The Yankees and Royals have agreed to a deal that will send right-hander Chance Adams from New York to Kansas City, tweets MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand. Once rated as one of the organization’s best prospects, Adams was designated for assignment last week in order to open a roster spot for newly signed Gerrit Cole. The two teams have yet to formally announce the deal.

Adams, 25, has struggled to an 8.18 ERA in a small sample of 33 MLB innings but isn’t long removed from being considered one of baseball’s best pitching prospects. In the 2017-18 offseason, each of Baseball America, MLB.com ad Baseball Prospectus ranked Adams within the game’s top 100 overall prospects. At that point, he’d just wrapped up a season that saw him pitch to a 2.45 ERA with 8.1 K/9 against 3.5 BB/9 in 150 1/3 innings between Double-A and Triple-A.

Things haven’t gone smoothly for Adams since, as he’s posted a 4.72 ERA in nearly 200 Triple-A innings since that time (in addition to the aforementioned MLB struggles). Adams has seen his walk rate tick upward as his strikeout percentages have dipped considerably from his time in the low minors. However, he won’t turn 26 until next August and has a minor league option remaining, so there’s little harm in a rebuilding club like the Royals taking a speculative look in hopes of striking gold.

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