Red Sox Release Steven Wright
The Red Sox have released knuckleballing right-hander Steven Wright, per a club announcement (h/t Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald, via Twitter). Wright had been projected by MLBTR to earn $1.5MM in arbitration, had he been tendered a contract.
This move doesn’t come as a surprise for a 35-year-old hurler who wasn’t a significant contributor in 2019. The Boston organization is known to be looking for ways to trim payroll and obviously didn’t envision Wright as a part of the staff.
Wright had a strong showing in 2016, pitching to a 3.33 ERA in 156 2/3 innings. But he was alternatively hurt and/or suspended for most of the next three campaigns.
When he was available, Wright wasn’t always very effective. Though he did end with a 2.68 ERA in 53 2/3 frames in 2018, that came with a less-than-inspiring combination of 42 strikeouts and 26 walks. He allowed nearly a run per inning in short stints in the 2017 and 2019 seasons.
There may yet be hope of a rebound, particularly for a pitcher that relies upon guile rather than power. But Mastrodonato tweets that there’s some additional health uncertainty at play here, perhaps involving Wright’s elbow.
Brewers Agree To MLB Deal With Deolis Guerra
The Brewers announced today that they have agreed to a one-year, MLB contract with righty Deolis Guerra. Terms were not announced.
Guerra, 30, was outrighted to Triple-A earlier this season and chose not to elect free agency at the time. Having previously been outrighted, however, he had the right to take to the open market instead at season’s end. Instead, the sides lined up on a new deal.
The Milwaukee organization obviously didn’t see fit to bring Guerra back onto the roster down the stretch. But his strong showing at Triple-A obviously impressed the club. The out-of-options reliever will still need to show well in camp to keep his roster spot, but he now seems to have the inside track on a bullpen job in 2020.
Guerra had a solid 2016 effort in the majors with the Angels, but otherwise hasn’t been able to hold down a MLB role. He was shelled in his lone outing last year at the game’s highest level, but excelled at Triple-A. In 66 2/3 innings over 45 appearances for the Brewers’ top affiliate, Guerra pitched to a 1.89 ERA with 11.9 K/9 and 2.2 BB/9.
Hernan Perez Elects Free Agency
Veteran infielder Hernan Perez has elected for free agency, choosing to forego an outright assignment from the Brewers.
Perez, 28, was designated for assignment and outrighted previously this summer, although he ultimately hung around the Milwaukee farm and was subsequently selected for the active roster again in September. Formerly a quasi-regular in Milwaukee, Perez was limited to just 246 plate appearances in the majors this year, finishing the season with a .228/.262/.379 line (62 wRC+). Though he’s recorded a sub-par 73 wRC+ across 1800+ MLB plate appearances, Perez did flash some tantalizing speed back in 2016, when he swiped 34 bags in 123 games for the Brew Crew.
The versatile Perez is almost certain to latch on somewhere for 2020, as he offers one of the most flexible gloves in the game. Even in limited duty in 2019, the Venezuelan logged time at every single spot on the diamond, save for catcher. Milwaukee’s 40-man roster count now sits at 39.
Reds Claim Josh Smith, Designate Juan Graterol For Assignment
4:45 pm: The Marlins have announced Smith’s claim, with an addendum indicating that Miami has also outrighted catcher Tyler Heineman and righty Hector Noesi to the Triple-A New Orleans roster. This puts Miami’s 40-man roster count at 37.
2:47 pm: The Reds have claimed pitcher Josh Smith off of waivers from the Marlins, according to a tweet from C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic (link). In a corresponding move, Cincinnati has designated catcher Juan Graterol for assignment.
The Marlins had claimed the left-handed Smith off of waivers from the Indians on Sept 14, making his time in the Miami organization exceedingly brief. Occasionally referred to as “Josh D. Smith” in order to avoid confusion, the lefty is a soft-tossing reliever with a largely fastball/slider dependent repertoire. The 30-year-old played in both the Pirates and Red Sox organizations before making his big league debut with Cleveland in 2019; he ultimately made 14 appearances between the Indian and Marlin pens, logging a 6.39 ERA (4.32 FIP) in a small sample of 12.2 innings. Amir Garrett is the only lefty on-hand in the Cincinnati bullpen, so Smith could be a relatively no-cost flier for a club looking to broaden its mix-and-match capabilities.
The 30-year-old Graterol first came up to the bigs with the Angels in 2016, but he’s never really been given an extended look in the majors. Across parts of three seasons, he’s received just 129 plate appearances at the game’s highest level, logging a meek .218/.227/.266 line with zero home runs. He spent most of 2019 at Triple-A in the Reds organization, logging a .249/.301/.325 slash through 226 plate appearances.
Zach Neal Re-Signs With Seibu Lions
9:38AM: It’s a two-year contract for Neal, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports (via Twitter). Neal will earn $4MM in guaranteed money, with more available via incentives.
7:29AM: Former MLB righty Zach Neal will return for another season with Japan’s Seibu Lions. The club announced the signing, with the Graveyard Baseball blog passing along the news via Twitter. Financial terms are not available.
Neal, 30, struggled to gain traction in the majors but looked right at home in Japan’s highest league, Nippon Professional Baseball. The former Athletics and Dodgers hurler had to earn his way onto the Lions’ roster through a stint with their top affiliate, but shined once he did.
Over 100 1/3 innings pitched in 17 starts, Neal pitched to a 2.87 ERA. He recorded only 51 strikeouts, though that’s a typical K rate for the command artist. Neal put only 15 baserunners aboard via the free pass, surrendered a manageable eight long balls, and evidently had success at limiting loud contact.
While Neal will stay abroad, at least for the time being, some other players could well be eyeing returns to the affiliated ranks. We recently broke down the 2019 season for numerous former major leaguers (and others of note) playing in Asia’s top leagues. That included Neal and his fellow NPB pitchers and hitters, as well as the pitchers and hitters playing in Korea’s KBO.
Indians Release Dioner Navarro
The Indians have released catcher Dioner Navarro, Baseball America’s Kegan Lowe reports. Navarro signed a minor league deal with the Tribe last winter, and hit .211/.339/.274 over 115 plate appearances (in 29 games) for Triple-A Columbus.
It marked a return to affiliated baseball for Navarro, who sat out the 2017 season entirely due to family health reasons and whose 2018 action was limited to 20 games with the Long Island Ducks of the independent Atlantic League and 22 games in the Venezuelan Winter League. He’ll turn 36 in February, and seems to be in line for another minors contract this offseason in another veteran depth role.
Navarro hit .250/.309/.370 over 3351 Major League plate appearances for seven different teams from 2004-16. The bulk (458) of his 1009 games came with the Rays, a stint that included an All-Star Game selection in 2008, though Navarro also saw regular or semi-regular duty as a member of the Dodgers, Cubs, and Blue Jays.
Giants Sign Drew Robinson To Minors Contract
The Giants have signed utilityman Drew Robinson to a minor league deal, as per Baseball America’s Kegan Lowe. Robinson became a free agent after being released by the Cardinals in August.
Robinson appeared in only five MLB games for the Cards in 2019, a sharp dropoff after playing in 95 games (246 PA) as a bench player for the Rangers in 2017-18. Originally a fourth-round pick for the Rangers in the 2010 draft, Robinson has a .202/.296/.369 slash line over his 253 career Major League plate appearances, but has hit a much more respectable .252/.362/.438 over 3686 PA at the minor league level.
Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi made a habit of picking up depth pieces in his first full year running San Francisco’s front office, and Robinson becomes the latest to get a look from the team. The 27-year-old brings a lot of defensive versatility, as he started multiple games at six different positions (second base, third base, left field, right field, shortstop, and primarily center field) in 2019, and also has experience as a first baseman.
Twins To Exercise Club Option Over Nelson Cruz
In one of the more predictable items of early offseason business, the Twins have decided to exercise their club option over designated hitter Nelson Cruz, according to Jon Heyman of MLB Network (via Twitter). That decision will not need to be made formally until after the conclusion of the World Series, but it seems the Minnesota organization has already chosen a path.
When Cruz was asked recently about his contract situation, he responded in a manner that almost suggested he would be waiting with baited breath: “I don’t have that call,” he said, “but hopefully they can pick up the option.” But it didn’t take an act of benevolence, or even require much deliberation, for the Minnesota organization to settle upon a return.
This campaign came to a bitterly rapid end, but Cruz was right to note recently that the future seems bright for the Minnesota organization. That’s due primarily to the team’s array of youthful talent, strong farm system, and tidy baseball ops balance sheets. But it’s also based upon the ability to retain Cruz on the heels of a campaign in which he provided valuable leadership and immense offensive production. The veteran DH swatted 41 dingers and turned in a .311/.392/.639 slash during the regular season before producing yet more strong output in the team’s fruitless ALDS appearance.
Cruz was already an elusive free agent bargain, having returned 4.3 wins above replacement (by measure of both Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference) at a cost of just $14MM. Now, the Twins get another bite at the apple for just $12MM. (The alternative was to send Cruz back onto the open market with a $300K buyout.) It might have been interesting to debate the open-market value of a 39-year-old DH after such a massive season, and then to see how the situation would play out. But we may safely presume that Cruz would have attracted ample interest at or above that price point, likely over multiple years.
Japanese Slugger Yoshitomo Tsutsugo To Be Posted
Japan’s Yokohama DeNA BayStars announced today that they intend to make star corner outfielder Yoshitomo Tsutsugo available through the NPB-MLB posting system. Jason Coskrey of the Japan Times was among those to cover the news via Twitter. Once he’s formally posted, which will occur between November 1st and December 5th, Tsutsugo will have thirty days to negotiate a contract with any of the thirty MLB teams. He’ll be represented by the Wasserman Agency, Mark Feinsand of MLB.com tweets.
The 27-year-old left-handed-hitting slugger is a ten-year veteran of Nippon Professional Baseball. Accordingly, he won’t be subject to the restrictions on international signings that limited the earning potential for countrymate Shohei Ohtani and certain other younger and/or less experienced players.
Under the new posting system, which went into effect after Ohtani’s signing, the team that agrees to sign Tsutsugo will also need to pay a release fee that is determined by reference to the contract. Teams pay 20% of guaranteed money up to $25MM, 17.5% for promised cash between $25MM and $50MM, and then 15% of anything beyond. There are also some provisions that allow for additional release fees in the event that certain non-guaranteed earnings are triggered.
Tsutsugo has long been on the MLB radar. He has been among the most effective hitters in Japanese baseball since fully establishing himself at the nation’s highest level in 2014. Since that time, Tsutsugo has devoured NPB pitching. In over four thousand career plate appearances, he’s a .284/.382/.525 hitter with 205 long balls.
This past season wasn’t Tsutsugo’s most dominant, as he provided the BayStars with 557 plate appearances of .272/.388/.511 hitting and launched 29 long balls. That’s a far sight shy of his personal-best 2016 output (.322/.430/.680, 44 home runs) but still plenty productive. Indeed, he was the sixth-best hitter in the NPB by measure of OPS.
There ought to be a fair amount of interest in Tsutsugo among MLB teams, though he’s not generally regarded as a quality fielder and isn’t exceptionally youthful. The most direct market competition will likely come from other left-handed-hitting, power-oriented corner bats such as Corey Dickerson and Kole Calhoun. It remains to be seen whether Tsutsugo will be targeted as a first-division regular, solid platoon candidate, or something in between.
White Sox Outright Charlie Tilson
12:24pm: Tilson has elected free agency, James Fegan of The Athletic tweets.
8:11am: White Sox outfielder Charlie Tilson was outrighted off the team’s 40-man roster yesterday, per the transactions log at MLB.com. Tilson has previously been outrighted, so he’ll have the option to declare free agency and see what the market holds for him this winter.
The writing was likely on the wall for Tilson when he didn’t receive a September call-up despite a healthy finish to the season in Triple-A. Tilson appeared in 54 games with the ChiSox in 2019, hitting .229/.293/.285 with a homer and five doubles in 157 plate appearances, but he spent most of the year with Triple-A Charlotte, where he batted .288/.345/.398 in 257 trips to the plate.
At the time of his acquisition from the Cardinals — Chicago traded Zach Duke to St. Louis for him back in 2016 — Tilson was viewed as an elite runner and a potential top-of-the-order. But Tilson tore his hamstring in his MLB debut just days after being acquired by the White Sox and missed the rest of the season after undergoing surgery. He then missed the entire 2017 campaign with a stress reaction in his foot that kept him in a walking boot for a notable portion of the season.
Since that pair of leg injuries, Tilson, who swiped 46 bases as a 22-year-old in Double-A in 2015, has tallied just 20 steals (in 28 attempts) across 223 games between Triple-A and the Majors. And in 278 Major League plate appearances since returning, he’s mustered a tepid .244/.309/.288 slash line. He still drew above-average defensive marks in a tiny sample of work in center field this season, though those same metrics panned his work in right field (again, in a minuscule sample). If and when Tilson does become a free agent, he’ll likely land a minor league deal and compete for a roster spot in Spring Training with a club next season.