Warwick Saupold, Chad Bell Sign With KBO’s Hanwha Eagles
The Hanwha Eagles of the Korea Baseball Organization announced that they’ve signed right-hander Warwick Saupold and left-hander Chad Bell to one-year contracts (hat tip: Dan Kurtz of MyKBO.net, on Twitter). Saupold will earn a total of $1MM — $300K signing bonus and $700K salary — while Bell will receive a $200K signing bonus and a $400K salary. As Kurtz further notes, the KBO recently amended some rules preventing first-year foreign players from signing for more than a total of $1MM. Saupold is repped by the Ballplayers Agency, while Bell is a client of the Bledsoe Agency.
Saupold, 29 in January, has spent parts of the past three seasons with the Tigers. The Australian-born righty has compiled 106 2/3 innings at the big league level to this point in his career, working to a 4.98 earned run average with 70 strikeouts against 46 walks out of the Detroit bullpen. His work in the minors has been considerably more impressive, as he sports a 3.39 ERA with 7.0 K/9 against 3.1 BB/9 in 188 2/3 frames with the Tigers’ top affiliate. He’s been with the Tigers organization since the age of 22, and he spent the two seasons prior to that pitching for his hometown Perth Heat of the Australian Baseball League.
Bell, 30 in February, was Saupold’s teammate with Detroit from 2017-18, though he finished out the ’18 campaign as a member of the Braves organization after being claimed off waivers in mid-May. He’s been knocked around for a 7.11 ERA in 69 2/3 MLB innings but managed a more palatable 4.27 ERA with 7.7 K/9 against 3.6 BB/9 in 270 Triple-A innings.
Indians Acquire Jordan Luplow, Max Moroff In Five-Player Trade With Pirates
The Indians announced Wednesday that they’ve acquired outfielder Jordan Luplow and infielder Max Moroff from the Pirates in exchange for utility man Erik Gonzalez and minor league right-handers Tahnaj Thomas and Dante Mendoza. The Pirates, too, have issued a press release announcing the move.
In Luplow, Cleveland adds an outfield option to a perilously thin mix. The 2014 third-rounder has yet to find success in the big leagues, but he’s raked to the tune of a .300/.378/.479 slash with 15 homers and 11 steals in 539 Triple-A plate appearances across the past two seasons. Luplow won’t turn 26 until next September, so there’s still plenty of time for him to carry that Triple-A productivity over to the big league level.
[Related: Updated Cleveland Indians depth chart and Pittsburgh Pirates depth chart]
From a defensive standpoint, Luplow has played all three positions in the Majors, albeit just 14 innings in center, and drawn generally positive reviews. In 382 2/3 innings of outfield work as a Major Leaguer, he’s posted +4 Defensive Runs Saved, a 3.1 Ultimate Zone Rating and an even mark in Statcast’s Outs Above Average. Luplow still has a minor league option remaining, so he can be sent to the minors without being exposed to waivers if he doesn’t crack the roster out of Spring Training next year.
Moroff, also 25, has had similar struggles to this point in his young Major League career, hitting .193/.293/.331 in a tiny sample of 209 plate appearances. Like Luplow, he’s fared better in Triple-A, where he’s a .233/.363/.399 hitter in 1045 plate appearances. He joins the Indians with more than 2700 minor league innings at second base, 1900-plus innings at shortstop and 601 innings at the Triple-A level.
In Gonzalez, the Pirates will acquire a versatile infield option who’s had more big league success than Moroff to this point, though he’s yet to truly thrive at the plate. Gonzalez hit .265/.301/.375 in 143 PAs this past season and is a career .267/.306/.406 hitter in Triple-A. He’s out of minor league options, so he’ll jump right into the mix for playing time with the Pirates in 2019 — a sentiment that was emphasized by general manager Neal Huntington in a press release announcing today’s trade.
“Erik Gonzalez is an athletic middle infielder who plays solid defense and has the potential to be a productive hitter at the major league level,” said Huntington. “He gives us another quality option to play shortstop or in the middle of our infield this year and into the future.”
Thomas, 19, spent this past season pitching for the Indians’ Rookie-level affiliate in Arizona, though he pitched just 19 2/3 innings in total. Overall, he’s totaled 58 professional innings since signing out of the Bahamas as a 16-year-old, and he’s posted a 5.28 ERA with a 61-to-43 K/BB ratio in that time. The bottom-line results are rough, but Thomas did land 30th on MLB.com’s ranking of the Indians’ prospects, with Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo writing that the projectable righty should add velocity to what is already a 92-95 mph fastball. He also draws praise for his athleticism and a potentially above-average curve, but he’s still several years away from being anywhere near big league ready. Fangraphs’ Eric Longenhagen was a bit more bullish, ranking him 26th in what he tweets is a “very deep” Cleveland system.
Mendoza is also 19 and also spent the most recent season pitching for the Indians’ Rookie affiliate in the Arizona League. He worked to a 4.58 ERA in 37 1/3 innings with 37 strikeouts against 20 walks. Longenhagen tweets that Mendoza is another “projection arm,” crediting him for two above-average secondary offerings and an 87-90 mph heater that figures to tick upwards as his 6’5″ frame fills out.
The swap also opens a spot on the Pirates’ 40-man roster, as they’re dealing two big leaguers for Gonzalez and a pair of right-handers who are years from needing 40-man protection. The trade, then, gives them a potential upgrade in terms of utility infielder while also giving the front office some additional flexibility in advance of next Tuesday’s deadline to protect players from the Rule 5 Draft.
Phillies Place Justin Bour On Waivers
The Phillies have placed first baseman Justin Bour on waivers, tweets Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia. The move comes in advance of a fairly notable deadline, as teams have until Tuesday of next week to protect players from the Rule 5 Draft by adding them to the 40-man roster.
The decision to place Bour on waivers effectively amounts to a non-tender that was not all that difficult to foresee. The former Marlins first baseman was eligible for arbitration for a second time this winter and was projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to get a raise from $3.4MM to $5.2MM. Bour was acquired in an August swap that sent minor league lefty McKenzie Mills to the Marlins. His time with the Phils proved to be exceptionally brief, as he tallied just 54 plate appearances in a limited role and batted .224/.296/.347. Bour was picked up to be a bench bat down the stretch and never looked like a long-term fit on a roster that included both Rhys Hoskins and Carlos Santana.
Bour, 30, had a down season overall at the plate in ’18, hitting .227/.341/.404 between Miami and Philadelphia. That marked a notable drop-off from his most productive seasons, when he batted a combined .279/.359/.510 in 750 PAs from 2016-17 with the Marlins. Though Bour has always had his limitations — that impressive slash line from 2016-17 is the product of being heavily shielded from opposing lefties, and he’s limited to first base only — there was still reported trade interest in him two summers ago. President of baseball ops Michael Hill said at the time that he wasn’t interested in discussing long-term assets in trades, though, and Bour stayed put in Miami. Under new ownership, the Marlins went on to strip down the roster and trade numerous controllable assets just months after Hill originally made those comments.
Other teams will have the chance to claim Bour off waivers, but if they do so, he’ll remain arbitration-eligible and carry that same projected salary to a new team. If Bour clears waivers, he has enough service time to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency — a route he’d surely take. That said, even with his impressive numbers from 2016-17, Bour could find a fairly tepid market in free agency. Teams haven’t spent much on first-base-only sluggers in recent winters, as evidenced by minimal contracts secured by the likes of Matt Adams, Lucas Duda and Logan Morrison, among others.
Minor-League Pitching Signings: 11/14/18
We’ll use this quiet morning to catch up on a few recently reported minor-league signings of veteran pitchers that we haven’t yet covered (with a hat tip to Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com for noting them) …
- The Dodgers inked righty Kevin Quackenbush to a minors deal, his representatives at Full Circle Sports Management announced. Quackenbush broke into the majors in intriguing fashion back in 2014, then gave the Padres two more seasons of useful innings, but has fallen off more recently. He was banged around in a brief MLB showing last year with the Reds, but did give the team’s top affiliate 47 frames of 2.68 ERA ball with 10.7 K/9 and 2.1 BB/9.
- Righty Jake Buchanan is heading to the Athletics on a minor-league pact, Melissa Lockard of The Athletic tweets. Now 29 years of age, Buchanan has seen action with three teams in the majors but has yet to command a significant opportunity at the game’s highest level. Last year, he struggled to a 5.17 ERA in 156 2/3 Triple-A innings with the Diamondbacks. Buchanan was originally an eighth-round pick of the Astros.
- The Rays have a deal with southpaw Ryan Merritt, according to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (via Twitter). Whether or not he makes it back to the majors, Merritt’s status as a legend was safely established when he turned in 4 1/3 scoreless innings for the Indians in the 2016 ALCS. Despite that stunning appearance, Merritt hasn’t seen much regular-season MLB action. That’s due in no small part to the fact that he has had knee and shoulder troubles arise. Merritt did return last year, rather unbelievably allowing only two walks, while recording 52 strikeouts, in his 71 1/3 Triple-A frames.
- Southpaw Tommy Layne is going to the Cardinals along with former MLB starter Williams Perez, according to Josh Jones (via Twitter), Brian Walton of TheCardinalNation.com (via Twitter) and the Mariners Minors Twitter account (link). Layne, 34, has appeared in 216 MLB games over a six-year run at the game’s highest level, but hasn’t been there since 2017. He was quite effective in 29 upper-minors innings last year in the Cards system, working to a 1.24 ERA with 11.2 K/9 and 1.2 BB/9, so he could compete for a job in camp. The 27-year-old Perez was a gap-filling piece for the Braves in 2015 and 2016. He, too, impressed in the upper minors last year, with a 2.45 ERA in 99 frames (mostly at Double-A) in the Mariners system.
Red Sox, Juan Centeno Agree To Minor League Contract
The Red Sox are in agreement with catcher Juan Centeno on a minor league contract, tweets MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo. The Magnus Sports client figures to receive an invite to Major League Spring Training.
Centeno, 28, appeared in 10 games for the Rangers this past season and joins the Boston organization with 111 games of MLB experience under his belt. He’s a career .227/.278/.331 hitter in 353 trips to the plate between the Mets, Brewers, Twins, Astros and Rangers. Centeno has shown a knack in terms of hitting for average at the Triple-A level, where he’s a .286/.330/.352 hitter in 1147 PAs, and he’s only struck out in 12.3 percent of his plate appearances at that level.
From a defensive standpoint, Centeno has thrown out 39 percent of would-be base thieves throughout his minor league career, but he’s at just 13 percent in that regard in the Majors. Baseball Prospectus gives him poor marks for his pitch-framing and blocking skills.
Christian Vazquez, Sandy Leon and Blake Swihart top Boston’s depth chart at catcher right now, though Swihart was rarely utilized at the position in 2018 while Leon’s anemic offense at least raises the question of whether the Sox will tender him a contract. Nonetheless, the addition of Centeno figures to be merely a means of adding some upper-minors depth for Boston in the early stages of the offseason, as there’s no clear path to the big league roster for him at this point.
Diamondbacks Sign Abraham Almonte To Minor League Deal
The Diamondbacks have signed veteran outfielder Abraham Almonte to a minor league pact with an invitation to Major League Spring Training. He’s represented by ISE Baseball. The actual signing took place last week, it seems, though the D-backs didn’t formally announce the move themselves, so it flew largely under the radar. The only acknowledgment of the move came from the D-backs’ Triple-A affiliate, on Twitter.
Almonte, 29, tallied 151 plate appearances with the Royals this past season but mustered just a .179/.260/.284 slash in that time. Almonte enjoyed a solid 2015 run with the Indians but has turned in a trio of underwhelming performances since that half season, hitting a combined .230/.292/.357 in 540 plate appearances between Cleveland and Kansas City. In all, the switch-hitter has a career .662 OPS but has drawn positive defensive marks at all three outfield spots — including +9 Defensive Runs Saved and a 5.0 Ultimate Zone Rating in 1283 innings of center field duty.
[Related: Arizona Diamondbacks depth chart]
Outfield depth will be an area of focus for the D-backs this offseason, as A.J. Pollock is likely to sign elsewhere after rejecting Arizona’s qualifying offer. Jon Jay, too, is a free agent this winter, while part-time outfielder Chris Owings stands out as a non-tender candidate after a miserable finish to his 2018 season. David Peralta, Jarrod Dyson, Steven Souza Jr. and Socrates Brito are all internal options in the outfield, and there’s also been some talk of moving Ketel Marte to center field, as Zach Buchanan of The Athletic recently explored (subscription link).
Minor MLB Transactions: 11/13/18
We’ll use this post to track the latest minor moves from around the game …
- The Royals announced that they’ve signed right-hander Michael Ynoa to a minor league contract. There’s no mention of an invite to Major League Spring Training. Ynoa, now 27, signed a hefty $4.25MM bonus with Oakland as an amateur back in 2008. He never found his footing in the organization, though, and was traded to the White Sox alongside Jeff Samardzija in the deal that brought Marcus Semien to Oakland. Ynoa made his big league debut with the ChiSox in 2016 and pitched to a 4.42 ERA with 8.1 K/9 against 5.9 BB/9 in 59 innings of work from 2016-17. He was out of affiliated ball entirely last year and is currently pitching in the Dominican Winter League, where he’s allowed just one run on four hits and four walks with 13 punchouts in 10 1/3 innings.
Earlier Moves
- The Athletics have reached a deal to bring back catcher Beau Taylor, per Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle (via Twitter). Thus ends a brief foray onto the open market for the 28-year-old, who was outrighted and became a minor-league free agent recently. Taylor made it up to the majors in 2018 just long enough to record his first hit, but he’s still hunting a second.Odds are he’ll head back to the Triple-A level, where he spent almost all of the 2018 season. Through 519 career plate appearances at the highest level of the minors, the former fifth-round pick has a .261/.364/.363 batting line.
Six Players Decline Qualifying Offers
The seven free agents who were issued qualifying offers by their former teams must decide by 4pm CT today whether or not to accept. You can get the full rundown of how the qualifying offer system works here, but in brief — if a player takes the offer, they will return to their team on a one-year, $17.9MM contract for the 2019 season and can never again be issued a QO in any future trips to the free agent market. If a player rejects the offer, their former team will receive a compensatory draft pick should another club sign the player. (The signing team will also have to give up at least one draft pick and potentially some funds from their international signing bonus pool.)
Most free agents reject the QO in search of a richer, more long-term contract, and this is expected to be the case for most (though not all) of this year’s qualifying offer class. The MLB Player’s Association has now announced all of these decisions, so they’re all official:
- A.J. Pollock will enter free agency after turning down the Diamondbacks‘ qualifying offer, tweets Jon Heyman of Fancred. He’ll be the top center fielder available and should draw interest from a fair number of teams, though his market demand is not yet clear.
- Bryce Harper declined the Nationals‘ qualifying offer, per Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com (via Twitter). That’s utterly unsurprising, as the superstar is lining up nine-figure offers as we speak.
- Craig Kimbrel is heading to the market rather than taking the one-year pact to stay with the Red Sox, Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com was among those to tweet. The veteran closer is expected to command a much larger and lengthier contract in free agency.
- Patrick Corbin won’t be accepting the Diamondbacks‘ qualifying offer, as per Fancred Sports’ Jon Heyman (Twitter link). No surprises with this decision, as Corbin is set to receive the biggest contract of any free agent pitcher this winter.
- Yasmani Grandal won’t accept the Dodgers‘ qualifying offer, ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez (via Twitter). Even in the wake of another mediocre postseason performance, there was little doubt Grandal would turn down the QO, as he projects to earn a strong contract as the best catcher in the free agent market.
- Dallas Keuchel has rejected the Astros‘ qualifying offer, MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand reports (Twitter link). The ground-ball specialist and 2015 AL Cy Young Award winner will hit the open market, and it remains to be seen if a return to Houston could be in the cards. The Astros could also lose Charlie Morton in free agency, and Lance McCullers Jr. will miss all of 2019 recovering from Tommy John surgery.
- Hyun-Jin Ryu has accepted the Dodgers‘ qualifying offer, as we explored in detail earlier today. Ryu becomes the sixth player to ever accept a QO, out of the 80 free agents who have been offered the deal over the last seven offseasons.
Hyun-Jin Ryu To Accept Dodgers’ Qualifying Offer
3:04pm: Ryu will indeed accept the qualifying offer, Fancred Sports’ Jon Heyman tweets.
12:01pm: Left-hander Hyun-Jin Ryu is “most likely” going to accept the one-year, $17.9MM qualifying offer issued to him by the Dodgers, MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand (Twitter link) hears from a source, though nothing has been finalized as of yet. The seven free agents who have qualifying offers pending have until 4pm CT today to accept or decline the one-year contracts.
Of those seven names, Ryu was the only one who seemed like a realistic candidate to accept the QO, given his significant injury history. Separate surgeries on Ryu’s shoulder and elbow cost him all of the 2015 season and limited him to just a single game in 2016, and a torn groin sidelined Ryu for almost three months of the 2018 campaign. The southpaw also had DL stints for more minor hip and foot issues in 2017.
These health concerns surely would’ve impacted Ryu’s stock on the free agent market, plus rejecting the qualifying offer would’ve meant that Ryu’s next team would’ve had to surrender draft picks and potentially international signing pool funds in order to sign him. The QO, Ryu’s health history, and his age (he turns 32 in March) all factored into a relatively modest placement for the left-hander on MLBTR’s Top 50 Free Agents list — Ryu was ranked 20th, with a projected three-year, $33MM contract (from the Dodgers).
If he does end up accepting the qualifying offer, Ryu would lock in a big payday for 2019 that is worth more than half of that $33MM projection. The $17.9MM salary, in fact, would represent just under half of Ryu’s entire Major League earnings to this point, as he originally signed a six-year, $36MM contract with Los Angeles for over the 2013-18 seasons. He’ll get another opportunity to prove that he can remain healthy over a full season, while doing so in a familiar environment of Dodger Stadium and playing for a contending team. Ryu is also ineligible to ever receive another qualifying offer in any future trips into the free agent market, and thus wouldn’t have any further draft pick/international money compensation attached to his services.
From the Dodgers’ perspective, committing $17.9MM to an oft-injured starter is something of a risk, considering that the team already has several rotation options in Clayton Kershaw, Walker Buehler, Rich Hill, Ross Stripling, Kenta Maeda, and Alex Wood (not to mention youngsters like Brock Stewart or Caleb Ferguson). Starting pitching depth has been a centerpiece of the Dodgers’ success, however, as the team has dealt with injuries to virtually all of its starters over the last few years. Even in the unlikely event that all of these arms stay healthy, the Dodgers could still deploy the excess pitchers in the bullpen — Wood, Stripling, and Maeda all spent time as relievers down the stretch last season.
Furthermore, Ryu pitched so well in 2018 that the Dodgers felt a one-year, $17.9MM investment was worth seeing if the lefty could stay healthy and duplicate his performance. Ryu posted a 1.97 ERA, 5.93 K/BB rate, and 9.7 K/9 over 82 1/3 innings last season, with a 90.2 mph average fastball that was in line with his pre-surgery velocity. There also wasn’t much batted-ball luck baked into Ryu’s numbers, as his wOBA and xwOBA were a perfect match (.268).
Ryu would become the sixth free agent to ever accept a qualifying offer, of the 80 who have been issued the one-year deals since the QO system was introduced for the 2012-13 offseason. Ryu’s situation bears a lot of similarities to that of Brett Anderson, whose own lengthy injury history also factored into his decision to accept a qualifying offer from the Dodgers following the 2015 season rather than test free agency.
Minor MLB Transactions: 11/12/18
The latest minor league transactions from around baseball…
- The Brewers announced (Twitter link) the signing of left-hander Angel Perdomo to a minor league deal with an invitation to their big league Spring Training camp. Baseball America ranked Perdomo as the 18th-best prospect in the Blue Jays’ minor league system prior to the 2017 season, though the southpaw hit something of a wall in high-A ball, spending the last two seasons at the level and posting a modest 3.67 ERA, 2.12 K/BB rate, and 9.6 K/9 over 154 2/3 innings. The 24-year-old Perdomo did miss time to injuries in each of the last two years, however, so better health and a fresh start in Milwaukee’s organization could get his career back on track.