Reds Reassign Nick Senzel To Minor League Camp
The Reds announced a slew of players who’ve been reassigned to minor league camp Friday, headlined by top prospect Nick Senzel. Cincinnati’s decision to do so has prompted a response from Senzel’s agent, Joel Wolfe of Wasserman, who spoke harshly of the organization’s decision to ESPN’s Jeff Passan (Twitter link).
“I don’t believe I’ve ever made public statements on this issue in my career,” said Wolfe, “but I feel compelled to do so in this case where it feels like a simply egregious case of service-time manipulation. We are well aware of the mandate from ownership for the Reds to win this year — and this seems to fly in the face of it. The NL Central was decided by one game last year. Every game matters. This is a shortsighted move that may be frugal now but could cost them dearly later.”
Reds president of baseball operations Dick Williams, unsurprisingly, told C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic that the decision was not tied to service time (Twitter link).
The Reds’ Senzel decision is, at the very least, more defensible than some recent service-driven minor league assignments (e.g. Kris Bryant, Eloy Jimenez, Ronald Acuna). Senzel is learning a new position on the fly after being moved from the infield to center field, and injuries limited him to just 44 games last year while also preventing him from taking place in the Arizona Fall League.
That said, Senzel is hitting .308/.300/.462 with six doubles and four stolen bases in 39 spring at-bats thus far, and he batted .310/.378/.509 as a 22-year-old in his first exposure to Triple-A pitching last season. There’s an argument that Senzel’s bat is ready for big league work, and the timing of his promotion to the big leagues will be an interesting situation to monitor in the coming weeks. The Reds would only need to keep Senzel in the minors for just over two weeks in order to secure an extra year of club control over the 2016 No. 2 overall draft pick.
Regardless of whether the move is service-driven, the Reds are well within their rights to make it and are arguably even wise to do so. The fact that they’re hoping to be more competitive and contend for a postseason berth in 2019, as Wolfe suggested, does muddy the waters a bit, and the Reds will unquestionably receive their share of criticism if they call Senzel up early in the season and narrowly miss the playoffs.
However, the current service time constraints were collectively bargained long ago and were not addressed in the latest wave of negotiations between the league and the MLBPA, thus maintaining a clumsy and antiquated system that is a disservice to virtually every party other than ownership. The game’s best young players are often held down longer than need be, slowing their path to significant earnings, while fans are deprived from seeing rising stars on the game’s biggest stage. Even front offices are left to make thinly veiled and often transparent statements to their fans, knowing full well that they’re setting themselves up to incur an angry backlash. It’s an out-of-date mechanism that would be better served to be restructured, and it’s likely to be a focal point as the league and union begin preliminary discussions well in advance of the next wave of the current CBA’s expiration.
In other Reds news, Cincinnati skipper David Bell announced that right-hander Tyler Mahle will open the season as the team’s fifth starter while Alex Wood heals up from back spasms that have plagued him throughout the spring (Twitter link via Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer). Wood’s injury isn’t expected to sideline him long, so he may only be in line for a small handful of starts before either shifting to a bullpen role or heading back to Triple-A to continue making regular starts.
Braves Release Sam Freeman
March 22: The Braves announced that they’ve released Freeman.
March 21: The Braves have outrighted left-hander Sam Freeman, per a club announcement. He has been assigned to Triple-A but will have the right instead to elect free agency.
Now 31, Freeman joined the Atlanta organization as a minor-league free agent in advance of the 2017 season. He ended up turning in a worthwhile campaign and being tendered a contract for the campaign that followed.
Freeman’s follow-up effort left some questions. He finished the 2018 season with 50 1/3 innings of 4.29 ERA ball, with 10.4 K/9 against 5.7 BB/9. Freeman allowed only three home runs on the year and maintained a healthy 52.1% groundball rate. He was as usual more effective against opposite-handed hitters.
The Braves ultimately decided to tender Freeman a contract once again, settling with him at $1.375MM. But it seems the team has decided to go in another direction at this point, preferring to drop the southpaw while it is only obligated to him for 45 days of salary.
Orioles Release Eric Young Jr.
The Orioles have released outfielder Eric Young Jr. from his minor league contract, Young himself revealed to reporters Friday (Twitter link via MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko). He’d been viewed as a legitimate candidate to break camp with the club but will now head back to the open market in search of another opportunity.
Young, now 33 years old, enjoyed a strong spring with the O’s, hitting .323/.462/.452 with a homer, a double and a pair of stolen bases. With Young no longer in the mix, the O’s will go with Trey Mancini in left field, Cedric Mullins in center and a combination of Joey Rickard and Dwight Smith Jr. in the outfield.
Young spent the 2017-18 seasons with the Angels but, after a solid run in 2017, saw his offensive output crater in 2018. Overall, he hit a combined .233/.293/.361 with five homers, nine doubles, a pair of triples and 17 steals through 242 plate appearances with the Halos. Young paced the National League with 46 stolen bases back in 2013 as a member of the Rockies, and he doesn’t look to have lost much of a step, as his sprint speed of 29.0 feet per second (via Statcast) still ranked in the 91st percentile of big leaguers last season.
White Sox Sign Alcides Escobar
The White Sox have signed shortstop Alcides Escobar to a minor league contract, the team announced to reporters (Twitter link via The Athletic’s James Fegan). He won’t, however, report to big league camp and is expected to open the season as infield depth in Triple-A.
Escobar, 32, is no stranger to the AL Central, having spent the past eight seasons with the Royals. He’s provided Kansas City with quality defense and baserunning but significantly below-average offense, as evidenced by his career .258/.293/.343 slash line in 5702 MLB plate appearance. His bat has actually trended down over the past couple of seasons, when he hit .242/.275/.338 in 1160 PAs.
The White Sox’ infield currently projects to have Yoan Moncada, Tim Anderson and Yolmer Sanchez line up at third base, shortstop and second base, respectively, which are the three main positions Escobar can play. Jose Rondon is the primary utility infield option, though Leury Garcia typically sees a bit of time around the infield in addition to logging significant innings in the outfield.
White Sox Release Brandon Guyer
The White Sox announced Friday that they have released outfielder Brandon Guyer. He’d been in camp on a minor league contract. The 33-year-old went 5-for-23 with a homer and a pair of walks (against eight strikeouts) in his brief time with the club this spring.
Guyer struggled in 2017-18 with the Indians, hitting at a .220/.312/.351 clip with nine homers in 413 plate appearances. He batted a combined .266/.356/.403 between Tampa Bay and Cleveland from 2014-16, however, and he’s generally been a solid platoon bat over the life of his MLB tenure. In 792 career plate appearances against lefties, Guyer has a .274/.376/.449 batting line. He’s more of an on-base threat than a power threat, in part because of the astonishing rate at which he’s hit by pitches.
Chicago has one corner-outfield slot earmarked for Eloy Jimenez, while playing time elsewhere in the outfield will be divided up between Jon Jay, Adam Engel, Leury Garcia and Daniel Palka. Guyer will have the opportunity to search for a bench role with another club — the Braves are reportedly considering alternatives to Adam Duvall — though the fact that he has just 356 career innings in center field don’t help his cause.
Cardinals To Select Matt Wieters, Designate Chasen Shreve
Matt Wieters has officially made the Cardinals’ roster as the backup to Yadier Molina, tweets Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Wieters, who signed a minor league deal in February, will have his contract selected, and the Cardinals will designate left-hander Chasen Shreve for assignment to make room on the 40-man roster.
Meanwhile, Jenifer Langosch of MLB.com tweets that outfielder Tyler O’Neill and right-hander Mike Mayers have both been informed they’ve made the Cardinals’ Opening Day roster as well.
Wieters, 32, has been beset by injuries in recent seasons as his offensive output has slowly deteriorated. The once-vaunted prospect and three-time All-Star most notably had Tommy John surgery in 2014 and also underwent hamstring surgery last season. He’s also missed time due to an oblique injury in recent years, and over the past three seasons he’s compiled a pedestrian .235/.303/.376 batting line.
Even that modest output from Wieters is worlds better than the Cards received from their backup catchers in 2018, however. Francisco Pena totaled 142 plate appearances but mustered a bleak .203/.239/.271 slash, while the since-traded Carson Kelly looked overmatched in a minuscule sample of 42 PAs as he hit .114/.205/.114. Pena also struggled with both framing and throwing out runners in 2018, so Wieters should present a definitive upgrade, even if he’s no longer a premier player at his position.
Shreve, 28, will ultimately pitch just 14 2/3 innings in a Cardinals uniform. The southpaw came to St. Louis in what now looks to be a remarkably regrettable trade with the Yankees, as Luke Voit burst onto the scene in New York late in the 2018 campaign and batted .333/.405/.689 with 14 home runs in 148 PAs down the stretch.
While some regression for Voit is inevitable, Shreve’s time with the Cardinals all but certain to end with today’s DFA. He has enough service time to reject an outright assignment even if he clears waivers. The Cardinals and Shreve had agreed to a $900K salary earlier this winter, avoiding arbitration, and the team will now at least save the majority of that sum with today’s move; Shreve will be owed 45 days of his salary as termination pay — a sum of about $218K. (The Cardinals, it should be noted, do still have 27-year-old reliever Giovanny Gallegos on the 40-man roster as part of their return for Voit.)
Over the past four seasons, Shreve has posted a solid 3.85 ERA and missed bats (10.3 K/9), but he’s also been far too prone to walks (4.7 BB/9) and home runs (1.8 HR/9) for either the Yankees or Cardinals to deem him a reliable bullpen option. Furthermore, he’s not a candidate for a more specialized role, as left-handed opponents have been even more successful against Shreve (.248/.335/.444) than right-handed opponents have been (.222/.316/.430).
With Shreve no longer in consideration for a bullpen role, it appears likely that Tyler Webb will open the season as the second left-hander behind Andrew Miller in manager Mike Shildt’s bullpen. Brett Cecil is expected to open the 2019 season on the injured list.
The out-of-options Mayers needed to either make the Opening Day roster or be designated for assignment. O’Neill has minor league options remaining but will make the club as a bench option behind Marcell Ozuna, Harrison Bader and Dexter Fowler for the time being. It’s not difficult to envision the slugger eventually playing his way into a larger role, though Fowler (as with Cecil) seems likely to get a chance at redemption due to his sizable contract.
Brad Miller Opts Out Of Contract With Dodgers
Infielder/outfielder Brad Miller has opted out of his minor-league deal with the Dodgers, per a club announcement. He’s heading back onto the open market.
Miller, 29, had joined the organization in hopes of being the latest infielder to resurrect his career in Los Angeles. While he showed well in spring action, he obviously wasn’t ticketed for a roster spot and decided to test his luck in free agency.
At times in the not-so-distant past, Miller has shown big power (30 home runs in 2016) and big patience (15.5% walk rate in 2017). Unfortunately, those two characteristics have yet to show up fully in the same season. In 254 plate appearances last year, Miller slashed .248/.311/.413 — a near match for his career-average line of .239/.313/.409, which itself equates to league-average productivity at the plate.
Teams that like what they saw out of Miller this spring, when he knocked eight base hits (two of them home runs) in 25 plate appearances, will have plenty of ways to make him fit on a major-league roster. Miller has plenty of experience in the middle infield and has spent some time at both corner infield and all three outfield spots. He hasn’t been trusted much recently at shortstop and hasn’t graded as a plus defender at any position, but still rates as a rather versatile player.
Giants Acquire Connor Joe, Designate Drew Ferguson
The Giants have acquired utilityman Connor Joe from the Reds, per a club announcement. Righty Jordan Johnson and cash considerations are headed to Cincinnati in return. To open a 40-man roster spot, the Giants designated outfielder Drew Ferguson for assignment.
Both Joe and Ferguson were selected in last December’s Rule 5 draft. The former went to the Reds from the Dodgers, while the latter came from the Astros organization. Ferguson would be offered back to Houston if he clears waivers, but every other team in baseball will have a chance to step into his Rule 5 rights.
With a deal coming together at this late stage of camp, it seems likely that Joe has the inside track on a job in San Francisco — perhaps bumping out veteran Pablo Sandoval. New president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi is amply familiar with the former Dodger farmhand, having just come over from the L.A. organization. If Joe can make and stay on the MLB roster all year, his rights would move permanently.
Joe, 26, is a former first-round pick who had largely struggled until a breakout 2018 season. In 435 plate appearances in the upper minors, he turned in a robust .299/.408/.527 slash with a career-high 17 home runs and sixty walks to go with 88 strikeouts.
Ferguson is also 26 years of age. The former 19th-rounder put himself on the map with some strong offensive showings, including a .305/.436/.429 run in 292 Triple-A plate appearances last year. But he has struggled since in short stints in the Arizona Fall League, Puerto Rican Winter League, and Cactus League.
On the Cincinnati end of this swap, Johnson will give the organization another upper-minors arm to work with. He earned a call-up to the highest level of the minors after 15 solid starts at Double-A last year, but struggled thereafter. In 58 frames over 11 outings at Triple-A, Johnson managed only a 4.66 ERA with 37 strikeouts against 33 walks.
Phillies Release Drew Butera, Andrew Romine
The Phillies have released catcher Drew Butera and infielder Andrew Romine, per a club announcement. Both had been in camp on minor-league deals with March 21st opt-out provisions, Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia notes on Twitter.
Clearly, the Philadelphia organization had determined that neither player would make its active roster. The 35-year-old Butera, a light-hitting career reserve, had quite a strong offensive showing in camp but did not do enough to top youngster Andrew Knapp for backup duties. Romine, 33, didn’t hit much this spring. He rarely has done much with the bat in the big leagues, but has been trusted to appear at every position on the field.
Alex Wilson Opts Out Of Contract With Indians
Righty reliever Alex Wilson has opted out of his contract with the Indians, per a club announcement. He will head back onto the open market in search of a better opportunity elsewhere.
Wilson, 32, had been competing for a spot in the Cleveland bullpen. Had he earned a nod, his minor-league deal would have provided a $1.25MM salary and $750K in potential incentives.
Though he has maintained a 3.23 ERA over 320 2/3 MLB innings over his career, including 61 2/3 frames of 3.36 ERA ball last year, Wilson was non-tendered this fall by the Tigers. He has never had the peripherals to support the results, but Wilson has certainly defied them for quite a long stretch. He turned in 8 2/3 innings of action this spring, allowing just two runs on five hits while compiling seven strikeouts against two walks.