Reds To Non-Tender Jose Peraza
The Reds have elected not to tender a contract to infielder Jose Peraza, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (via Twitter). MLBTR had projected him to earn $3.6MM in his first season of arbitration eligibility.
This is a tough pill for the Reds to swallow, as it had seemed entering the 2019 season that Peraza could turn into a steady regular. But he fell far shy of expectations in the just-completed campaign.
There’s no questioning the depth of Peraza’s struggles. He stumbled to a .239/.285/.346 batting line in 403 plate appearances. He didn’t even grade as a positive overall baserunner despite his obvious talent in that regard. Though Peraza continued to show well with the glove, it wasn’t enough to convince the Reds to keep the faith entering a must-win season.
In spite of the difficulties, it’s still a bit of a surprise to see Peraza cut loose at 25 years of age and with three seasons of arbitration control remaining. He may not quite have turned into the player they hoped he would when they acquired him back in 2015, but Peraza was a 2.6 fWAR performer in 2018 and has at times shown an ability to produce at a league-average rate with the bat despite a minimal walk rate.
With Peraza out of the mix at shortstop, the Reds depth chart is presently topped by Freddy Galvis. The club picked up his option at $5.5MM. Whether he’ll end up serving as a utility piece or semi-regular at short remains to be seen.
Phillies Claim Trevor Kelley
The Phillies announced that they have claimed righty Trevor Kelley off waivers from the Red Sox. He had been selected to the Boston roster in July.
Kelley, 26, didn’t exactly stake a claim to a permanent job in his brief action last year at the game’s highest level. He didn’t get many swings and misses and surrendered eight earned runs in his first 8 1/3 big league innings.
But there was a reason that the Red Sox called upon the sidearming, sinkerballing newcomer. In his 65 1/3 Triple-A innings, Kelley carried a 1.79 ERA that stood out in the hitter-friendly International League. While his peripherals — 8.7 K/9, 2.9 BB/9, 1.10 HR/9, 33.5% groundball rate — weren’t exactly eye-popping, Kelley showed enough to make the Phils believe he can at least serve as worthwhile pen depth.
Rangers Claim Jimmy Herget, Designate Jeffrey Springs
The Rangers announced Monday that they’ve claimed right-hander Jimmy Herget off waivers from the Reds and designated left-hander Jeffrey Springs in a corresponding move. The Rangers’ 40-man roster remains full.
Herget turned 26 late last season after receiving his first MLB look. He didn’t produce a single strikeout in 6 1/3 innings in the majors, but ran up 10.4 K/9 over his 58 2/3 Triple-A innings. The funky righty posted a 2.91 ERA at the highest level of the minors but has largely been stalled there for the past three seasons.
The Texas org obviously preferred Herget’s outlook to that of Springs, who turned in good results in 2018 but couldn’t follow that up last year. In his 32 1/3 innings in the majors, Springs scuffled to a 6.40 ERA with 8.9 K/9 and 6.4 BB/9.
Koda Glover Announces Retirement
In a surprising and saddening development, Nationals reliever Koda Glover has announced that he’s retiring as a player at just 26 years of age. Injuries have ravaged the former eighth-round pick’s promising career and limited him to just 55 1/3 innings since making his Major League debut as a 23-year-old back in 2016.
Glover had Tommy John surgery before he was even drafted by the Nationals and has also battled a torn labrum in his hip, repeated back and shoulder troubles and, in 2019, a forearm strain that generated concerns about yet another elbow surgery.
“I write to you all today with great despair, that I will be announcing my retirement from professional baseball,” Glover writes. “I have experienced a number of injuries the past three years and I believe it is time to step away from my playing career. I have loved this game from the moment I took my first steps and I will continue to love it for the rest of my life.” His statement goes on to thank the Nationals organizations, its fans, and the coaches and teammates who’ve impacted him throughout his brief career.
Glover was heralded by managerial legend Dusty Baker as the Nationals’ potential closer of the future, and given his possession of a fastball that averaged better than 96 mph and a wipeout slider, it’s easy to see why Baker wasn’t alone in thinking that. Glover did save eight games for the Nationals in 2017, but injuries never allowed him to reach even 20 innings in a big league season — and they surely contributed to some of his struggles on the mound as well. Glover revealed after the 2016 season that he’d been pitching through a torn labrum in his hip, and he pitched through rotator cuff issues the following year.
Overall, he’ll be forced to step away from the game after pitching 55 1/3 innings with nine saves, a 4.55 ERA and a 42-to-21 K/BB ratio. His retirement will open a spot on the Nationals’ 40-man roster — it’s now at 31 players — and will only further underscore the team’s need for bullpen help. Best wishes to Glover in whatever path he chooses to pursue in his post-playing days.
Braves To Non-Tender Charlie Culberson
The Braves will non-tender infielder/outfielder Charlie Culberson prior to tonight’s deadline, Robert Murray reports (via Twitter). MLB.com’s Mark Bowman tweeted not long before that the organization was considering such a move. Culberson will immediately become a free agent who is eligible to sign with any team.
It’ll go down as an unpopular move among Atlanta fans, as Culberson has not only distanced himself from a woeful slump to begin his Braves tenure in 2018 (.203/.266/.339 through his first two months) but also emerged as something of a fan favorite after excelling in some clutch situations in 2018. Overall, his 2018 campaign resulted in a productive .270/.326/.466 batting line through 322 plate appearances.
However, Culberson was limited to just 144 plate appearances in 2019 despite appearing in 108 games, and he wasn’t particularly productive when he did step to the plate, hitting .259/.294/.437 (83 OPS+, 85 wRC+). His 2019 season was cut short in September by a fractured cheek bone suffered upon being hit by a Fernando Rodney fastball, but there’s no indication to this point that he’s expected to miss time in 2020. Still, this year’s downturn in production landed him on our list of non-tender candidates late last week.
In all, Culberson posted a respectable .267/.316/.457 batting line in 466 plate appearances as a Brave, but the team apparently wasn’t comfortable with what he might earn in arbitration. (MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz had projected a $1.8MM salary.) Any club that picks him up would be able to sign him to just a one-year pact and still control him through the 2021 season via arbitration.
Blue Jays Announce Several Minor League Signings
The Blue Jays announced Monday that they’ve signed five players to minor league contracts with invitations to Major League Spring Training: right-handers Justin Miller, Phillippe Aumont and A.J. Cole (as had been previously been reported in Cole’s case), outfielder Patrick Kivlehan and infielder Andy Burns.
Miller, 32, has the most notable recent experience at the MLB level among the newly known signees. He spent the 2018-19 seasons pitching out of the Nationals’ bullpen and looked to be a savvy bargain find in the first of those two campaigns. The 2018 season saw Miller work to a 3.61 ERA with 10.3 K/9, 2.9 BB/9 and a 33.6 percent ground-ball rate. He was prone to home runs (1.72 HR/9), but Miller’s ability to miss bats and limit walks allowed him to produce a rather solid season.
Things went south in 2019, as Miller’s already homer-prone arsenal was clobbered among a leaguewide home-run surge; in 15 2/3 innings he posted a 4.02 ERA but a 7.11 FIP thanks to five home runs allowed. Those 2019 struggles notwithstanding, Miller has averaged better than a strikeout per inning in 156 1/3 MLB frames.
Aumont, 30, was also in the Jays’ system back in 2015. The Gatineau, Quebec native spent the 2019 season pitching with the Ottawa Champions of the independent Canadian-American Association, where he logged a 2.65 ERA with a scintillating 145-to-23 K/BB ratio in 118 2/3 innings (18 starts). He’s struggled mightily in 43 2/3 MLB innings but has averaged better than 10 strikeouts per nine innings pitched in parts of seven Triple-A campaigns. Walks have previously been an issue for him, but his control was exceptional in ’19. Aumont has worked for more as a reliever than a starter in his professional career, but perhaps the Jays could utilize him as rotation depth this time around.
Kivlehan, 30 later this month, had a productive season between Toronto’s Double-A and Triple-A clubs in 2019, so it’s not a surprise that they opted to bring him back. He’s a career .208/.302/.401 hitter in 242 MLB plate appearances but a .262/.325/.480 hitter in his Triple-A career. He has experience at all four corner positions.
Burns, another familiar face for Toronto fans, followed up a nice two-year run in the KBO from 2017-18 with a .275/.364/.470 showing with the Jays’ Triple-A club in Buffalo in 2019. With the exception of that two-year stint in South Korea, Burns has spent his entire career in the Blue Jays organization.
Rangers Claim Nick Goody
Dec. 2: Goody has accepted the assignment and been added to the Rangers’ 40-man roster, per a club announcement. The team’s 40-man roster is now full.
Nov. 26: Indians right-hander Nick Goody has been claimed off waivers by the Rangers, per an announcement from the Texas organization. (MLBTR reported that he’d been claimed by an unknown team this afternoon.) Players claimed off release waivers have five days to accept the assignment to their new club or reject in favor of free agency.
Goody, 28, is projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to receive a $1.1MM salary via arbitration this winter. The right-hander had a terrific 2017 season for the Indians, compiling a 2.80 ERA with 11.9 K/9, 3.3 BB/9 and 1.2 HR/9 in 54 innings out of the bullpen. Goody logged an eye-popping 16.1 percent swinging-strike rate that season and whiffed nearly a third of the hitters he faced. His slider, in particular, gave opponents fits, as evidenced by a 24.2 percent swinging-strike mark and an awful .147 opponents’ average against the pitch.
An elbow strain caused Goody to miss most of the 2018 season, however, limiting him to 11 2/3 innings of 6.94 ERA ball. He was healthy again for most of the 2019 season and turned out a solid 3.54 ERA with a 50-to-22 K/BB ratio in 40 2/3 innings. Control was an issue for Goody this past season, and his 25.7 percent fly-ball rate was a career-low. But the right-hander’s 92.8 mph average fastball was a career-high, and his slider, which was hammered in 2018, appeared to be back into good form in 2019 (.123 average against; 23.2 percent swinging-strike rate).
If Goody does indeed accept his assignment to the Rangers and go through the arbitration process, he’d be controllable for not only the 2020 season but also the 2021-22 seasons.
KBO’s KT Wiz Re-Sign William Cuevas
The KT Wiz of the Korea Baseball Organization announced they have re-signed right-hander William Cuevas (h/t to Dan Kurtz of MyKBO). The deal comes with a $900K guarantee, with an additional $100K available in incentives.
Cuevas, 29, pitched in parts of three MLB seasons with the Red Sox and Tigers, although he combined for only 22.1 innings at the highest level. He’d typically been on hand as high minors starting pitching depth between 2015-18. Cuevas is probably most well-known for his time with the Red Sox, who originally signed him out of Venezuela a decade ago. In addition to Detroit and Boston, Cuevas briefly pitched in the Marlins’ system, although he never made the big leagues with Miami.
Cuevas made the jump to Korea after the 2018 season. In his first season with the Wiz, he tossed 184 passable innings. His 3.62 ERA ranked 14th among 27 qualifiers, per MyKBO Stats, while his 17.8% strikeout rate (11th) and 8.3% walk rate (22nd) were more serviceable than remarkable. Nevertheless, the Wiz were evidently encouraged enough to commit one of their three roster spots available for foreign-born players to Cuevas in 2020.
Dodgers, Scott Alexander Avoid Arbitration
The Dodgers have agreed to terms with left-hander Scott Alexander on a one-year, $875K contract to avoid arbitration, reports Bob Nightengale of USA Today (via Twitter). Alexander falls a bit shy of his $1MM projected salary.
The 30-year-old looked like a potential non-tender candidate, perhaps explaining his decision to settle for slightly less than expected. An integral part of the Los Angeles bullpen in 2018, Alexander was limited to just 28 games last season, none after June 5. Alexander suffered a season-ending forearm issue in his throwing arm, which culminated in surgery to relieve nerve irritation in September.
Alexander’s time in LA has been a bit of a mixed bag. Over the past two years, he’s given the Dodgers 83.1 innings with a 3.67 ERA and mediocre strikeout (18.9%) and walk (9.9%) rates. Alexander’s an elite ground-ball specialist, though. His 68.5% ground ball rate the past two seasons trails only Zack Britton among still-active pitchers (minimum 50 innings). The former sixth-round pick turned those worm-burners into stellar results with the 2017 Royals, spurring the Dodgers to part with fairly well-regarded pitching prospect Trevor Oaks to bring Alexander aboard.
Predictably, Alexander has been a bit better retiring lefties (.250/316/.328) than righties (.253/.325/.363) over the course of his career. The Dodgers already have Adam Kolarek on hand as a more extreme lefty specialist, although the three-batter minimum rule likely to be instituted in 2020 could adversely affect both hurlers.
Today’s news doesn’t cement Alexander’s status with the Dodgers. Arbitration salaries don’t become fully guaranteed until the start of the regular season, so LA could yet choose to part ways later on at minimal cost. Alexander will, though, at least keep his 40-man roster spot for the time being. If he sticks on the roster for the winter, he comes with two option years, giving the Dodgers some coveted flexibility.
Tayler Scott To Sign With NPB’s Hiroshima Carp
The Hiroshima Carp of the NPB have announced the signing of righty Tayler Scott, as relayed in a tweet from Patrick Newman of NPBtracker.com (link). Scott, who is expected to serve in middle relief with the Carp, will receive a $525K salary and a $175K signing bonus.
A native of Johannesburg, South Africa, Scott made his MLB debut in 2019 with the Mariners after a seven-year minor league career in the Cubs, Brewers, and Rangers orgs. A rough sample of appearances (9.39 ERA in 7.2 innings) foreshadowed his placement on waivers, where he was scooped up by the pitching-needy Orioles.
Things went even more poorly in Baltimore, unfortunately, with the 27-year-old allowing 18 earned runs in 8.2 innings of relief. Still, the 6’3 righty has managed a 3.86 ERA over the course of his minor league career, armed with a sinking fastball that sits around 94 mph and a slider that elicited a respectable 36.1 percent whiff rate in Scott’s brief MLB tenure.