Yankees Release Adam Lind
10:43am: The Yankees have confirmed the move.
10:39am: While the team has yet to announce a move, Randy Miller of NJ Advance Media reports that the Yankees released first baseman Adam Lind after yesterday’s game (Twitter link). Billy Witz of the New York Times tweets that Lind’s locker has been cleared out in the Yankees clubhouse and adds that he, too, hears the veteran is no longer with the organization.
Lind, 34, reportedly had an opt-out date in his minor league deal with the Yankees, but that wasn’t set to come until March 22. It’s not clear at this time whether he’ll quickly line up an arrangement with another organization or if he’ll have to explore the market for a few days before landing in a new spot. He went 3-for-15 (all singles) with five strikeouts and a walk in 16 plate appearances with the Yankees this spring.
Jack Curry of the YES Network tweets that Lind candidly told him he didn’t see a path to 300+ plate appearances when asked yesterday, which indeed would’ve been tough to envision, barring injuries elsewhere on the roster. Greg Bird is slated to serve as the everyday first baseman in New York and, like Lind, is a left-handed hitter. Tyler Austin provides a right-handed-hitting complement to Bird, and newly signed Neil Walker could conceivably see some backup time at first base if needed. There’s no room for Lind in the Yankees outfield, either, with Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Hicks, Brett Gardner and Jacoby Ellsbury all on the 25-man roster.
Last season with the Nationals, Lind slashed .303/.362/.512 with 14 homers in 301 plate appearances. That served as a nice rebound effort from a poor 2016 effort in Seattle and made that lone down year appear to be largely aberrational in nature. Lind has posted an OPS+ of 123 or better in four of the past five seasons, batting a combined .282/.348/.473 through 2142 plate appearances in that time. Of course, that production has come almost entirely against right-handed pitching, as Lind’s struggles against lefties has been a well-documented issue throughout his big league career.
Minor MLB Transactions: 3/13/18
We’ll track the day’s minor moves with this post:
- Backstop Brett Nicholas is back in camp with the Rangers after clearing waivers and being outrighted, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News tweets. He’ll still have a shot at earning the organization’s back-up catching job, though obviously it seems he is behind others in the competition. Nicholas, 29, has been a strong offensive performer at Triple-A, where he owns a .283/.333/.427 slash in 1,669 lifetime plate appearances, and helpfully hits from the left side. But his defensive abilities are not generally considered as polished, reducing his appeal as a reserve receiver.
Braves To Sign Ezequiel Carrera
The Braves have agreed to terms with outfielder Ezequiel Carrera, per Jon Heyman of Fan Rag (via Twitter). It’s a minor-league deal, per MLB.com’s Mark Bowman (Twitter link). Carrera can earn $650K in the majors, Bob Nightengle of USA Today tweets.
Carrera was recently released by the Blue Jays, sending him onto the open market in the middle of Spring Training. That move allowed the organization to avoid most of the $1.9MM arbitration salary it had agreed to with Carrera at the outset of the offseason.
As Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet.ca reminds us on Twitter, current Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos was responsible for bringing Carrera to Toronto back when he ran the Jays’ baseball operations. Clearly, Anthopoulos is a believer, though it’s not clear whether Carrera will have a real shot at earning a roster spot over the final weeks of Spring Training.
Carrera, 30, did have a strong 2017 season in which he posted a .282/.356/.408 batting line with eight home runs and ten steals over 325 plate appearances. Whether now or at some point during the campaign to come, he could be an option as a reserve/platoon outfielder in Atlanta. Currently, the team appears to be slated to utilize fellow left-handed hitter Preston Tucker in a similar role.
Reds Outright Dilson Herrera
Reds infielder Dilson Herrera has been outrighted to Triple-A after clearing waivers, per C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic (via Twitter). The Reds have since announced the move. Herrera will remain in MLB camp for the time being but obviously will not be expected to make the active roster out of Spring Training.
Circumstances have combined to change Herrera’s once-promising outlook in the Cincinnati organization. He struggled to a .264/.312/.397 slash in 264 Triple-A plate appearances last year before shoulder surgery ended his season. In the meantime, the club not only oversaw the surprising emergence of Scooter Gennett but has also seen the development of other infield talent.
That said, Herrera is still just 24 years of age and should have every opportunity of regaining his trajectory. He has mostly produced quality offensive numbers in the upper minors, including a .289/.345/.460 slash in over a thousand total trips to the plate at Triple-A.
Herrera, who was acquired in the 2016 deal that sent Jay Bruce to the Mets, will now have too earn his way back onto the MLB roster. The Reds will no doubt be glad to have held onto Herrera, who is out of options, after deciding not to keep him in the majors to open the year.
Orioles Sign Hunter Cervenka
The Orioles have signed lefty Hunter Cervenka to a minor-league deal, per a club announcement. He’ll join the minor-league side of camp.
Cervenka, 28, lost his 40-man spot with the Marlins late last year and was released a few days ago. Things just never worked out in Miami after the team picked him up from the Braves via trade in the summer of 2016.
Baltimore will hope that Cervenka can finally learn to tamp down on the free passes that have long plagued him. He’ll presumably spend the rest of camp fighting for a placement with one of the club’s top affiliates and, eventually, a chance to earn a call-up if a need arises at the MLB level.
Phillies Sign Jake Arrieta
The Phillies have officially inked right-hander Jake Arrieta, as Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia first reported on Twitter. It’ll be a three-year, $75MM contract for the Scott Boras client, Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweets.
Arrieta will earn $30MM in 2018, $25MM in 2019 and $20MM in 2020, Jon Heyman of Fan Rag reports (links to Twitter). Arrieta can choose to opt out of the deal after the second season, though interestingly, the contract also allows the Phillies to “void” the opt-out by picking up a two-year option that would extend the contract through the 2021-22 seasons.
Should the Phils override the opt-out, they would pay Arrieta a base salary of $20MM in each of the two additional years. But those option-year salaries aren’t fixed. Games-started escalators (presumably, based upon 2019 tallies) can boost the values by as much as $5MM, with the escalators beginning at 25 starts and maxing out if and when Arrieta takes the ball for a 31st time. He can escalate those salaries further by finishing in the top-five of the N.L. Cy Young voting in either 2018 or 2019; the annual rate on the potential extra years goes up by $5MM with a top-three finish or by $3MM if Arrieta finishes fourth or fifth. The contract also includes a $1MM assignment bonus provision.
Up until Sunday, the 32-year-old Arrieta ranked as the best free agent remaining in what has been a famously slow-moving market since it opened in November. Back then, MLBTR forecast a four-year, $100MM pact for Arrieta, who’s coming off a four-plus-year run with the Cubs in which he was one of baseball’s best pitchers.
During his stretch in Chicago from 2013-17, the former Orioles castoff won a Cy Young (2015) and a World Series (2016), and he pitched to a 2.73 ERA/3.16 FIP with 8.89 K/9, 2.73 BB/9 and a 50.6 percent groundball rate over 803 innings. Arrieta fell off somewhat last year, however, with a 3.53 ERA/4.16 FIP over 168 1/3 frames. While Arrieta again offered strong strikeout and walk numbers (8.71 K/9, 2.94 BB/9), his grounder (45.1 percent) and swinging-strike rates (8.7; down from 10 percent as a Cub) each trended in the wrong direction. He also experienced a drop in velocity, going from upward of 94 mph with his fastball in each of the previous five seasons to 92.6.
With last year’s decline in mind, it’s less surprising that free agency didn’t go as planned for Arrieta. It’s also not surprising that the Phillies were willing to reel him in at a discounted rate. Phillies president Andy MacPhail and general manager Matt Klentak emphasized throughout the offseason that they weren’t interested in signing anyone to an overly long deal, but they did suggest they’d be willing to pay extra for shorter-term pacts. Arrieta is now the fourth noteworthy free agent to whom they’ve guaranteed three or fewer years since December.
Previously, the Phillies landed first baseman Carlos Santana (three years, $60MM) and the relief duo of Tommy Hunter (two years, $18MM) and Pat Neshek (two years, $16.25MM). Despite those signings, the big-market Phillies entered Sunday with plenty of spending room, and they still figure to fall short of last year’s $100MM Opening Day payroll even in the wake of their expensive Arrieta agreement.
All of those additions certainly aren’t guaranteed to lead to immediate contention for the Phillies, who registered their sixth straight non-playoff season and their fifth consecutive sub-.500 year in 2017. But the Arrieta pickup could be particularly helpful to a team whose projected rotation otherwise wouldn’t have featured any proven options beyond Aaron Nola. He and Arrieta should form a quality one-two punch and perhaps help the Phillies return to contention in 2018 as part of a National League that features three clear favorites – Arrieta’s previous team, the Cubs, as well as the Dodgers and Nationals. Washington, which was a speculative landing spot for Arrieta, will now have to deal with him as an opponent in its division, though the Nationals are still the obvious NL East front-runners over the Mets, Phillies, Braves and Marlins.
Despite their recent run of irrelevance, the Phillies clearly regard themselves as a team on the upswing, as their free agent splashes indicate. After losing their second-highest draft pick in 2018 and $500K in international bonus pool to sign Santana, who rejected the Indians’ qualifying offer, they’ll surrender their third-highest selection (No. 79) and another $500K for Arrieta. The Cubs, who qualified Arrieta in November, will collect a compensatory pick after the second round. They seem well equipped to move on without Arrieta, having added this offseason’s top free agent starter, Yu Darvish (six years, $126MM), and Tyler Chatwood to a rotation that will also feature Jose Quintana, Kyle Hendricks and Jon Lester.
Boras hoped to outdo Darvish’s pact with Arrieta, given that the latter has the better track record of production, but he has instead seen another of his clients collect a lower-than-expected payday. To Boras’ credit, a pair of his players – first baseman Eric Hosmer ($144MM) and slugger J.D. Martinez ($110MM) – did receive two of this free agent class’s three richest guarantees. On the other hand, before Arrieta reached an agreement, Carlos Gonzalez ($8MM), Mike Moustakas ($6.5MM) and Carlos Gomez ($4MM) each signed for relatively underwhelming amounts. Now, reliever Greg Holland is the last high-end Boras client remaining on a shrinking market as Opening Day draws closer.
Nightengale and Jon Heyman of FanRag first reported that the Phillies and Arrieta were headed toward a deal.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Phillies Designate Tommy Joseph For Assignment
The Phillies announced that they’ve designated first baseman Tommy Joseph for assignment. His removal from the 40-man roster creates a spot for right-hander Jake Arrieta, whose multi-year deal with the Phillies has now been formally announced by the team.
Joseph, 26, simply found himself without a clear path to playing time after the Phils elected to give big money to Carlos Santana earlier in the winter. Without a DH spot to hide an extra bat, Joseph was a marginal competitor for a bench spot in camp.
That’s not to say he won’t hold some appeal to other organizations, though. Joseph has shown plenty of pop in his first two years in the majors, putting the ball over the fence 43 times in 880 plate appearances. But he’ll certainly need to boost his .297 OBP if he’s going to hold down a big league job, particularly given his lack of defensive flexibility.
Things would surely look quite a bit different if Joseph was still catching. Once a top-tier prospect as a backstop, concussion problems forced him out from behind the plate. The fact that he was still able to reach the majors as a first baseman is testament both to his talent and effort.
Yankees Release Danny Espinosa
The Yankees have released veteran infielder Danny Espinosa from his minor league contract, GM Brian Cashman told reporters today after announcing the signing of Neil Walker (Twitter link via the YES Network’s Jack Curry).
The move will allow Espinosa the opportunity to find a club better-poised to give him a chance at cracking the big league roster. Since the Yankees signed Espinosa earlier this offseason, they’ve acquired Brandon Drury in a trade and signed Walker to a one-year deal. With that pair on the 25-man roster, plus prospects Gleyber Torres and Miguel Andujar on the horizon and utility options like Tyler Wade and Ronald Torreyes, Espinosa clearly faced an uphill battle in ever seeing any big league time in the Bronx.
Over the past two seasons, the switch-hitting Espinosa has struggled to a dismal .197/.286/.344 slash with 283 strikeouts in 896 plate appearances — a whopping 31.5 percent strikeout rate. But, Espinosa is a talented defensive player that has experience all around the infield and has a history of decent offensive output against left-handed pitching. While it’s now been two years since he’s delivered anything in the way of offensive production in the big leagues, Espinosa still should hold appeal to other organization with lesser depth up the middle.
Yankees Sign Neil Walker
The Yankees have agreed to a contract with free-agent infielder Neil Walker, reports Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports (via Twitter). Walker, a client of Excel Sports Management, will earn a base salary of $4MM, tweets MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch.
Walker can also boost his earnings a bit through bonuses, per Jack Curry of the YES Network (via Twitter) and Hoch (via Twitter). He can take home up to $500K via plate appearance incentives, with $125K apiece upon reaching each of 425, 450, 475 and 500 plate appearances.
The agreement will bring to a close a lengthy trip through the free-agent process for the 32-year-old Walker, who struggled to find a landing spot this offseason despite a history of above-average offense and the ability to handle multiple positions around the infield. The infielder himself told Billy Witz of the New York Times recently that he thought he’d been close to an agreement with the Yankees before the team pivoted and acquired Brandon Drury from the D-backs.
Now, it seems that the Yankees will have veteran options to fill in at both third base and second base as they round out their infield before Opening Day. The addition of Walker likely means that both Gleyber Torres and Miguel Andujar will begin the 2018 season in the minors, with Drury lined up at the hot corner and Walker at second base. That said, Walker’s ability to bounce between first base and third base as well, if necessary, could allow him to move to a utility role later in the year if Torres emerges and pushes him for the starting second base job.
Walker is fresh off a solid .265/.362/.439 slash line with 14 homers in 448 plate appearances between the Mets and Brewers last season. A partially torn hamstring sidelined him for several weeks last summer, but he showed little in the way of ill effect late in the year, hitting at a .267/.403/.433 clip after an August trade to Milwaukee. Injuries have to be at least something of a concern with Walker, to be sure; in addition to last year’s hamstring trouble, Walker underwent back surgery in 2016 — a procedure that led to him accepting a $17.2MM qualifying offer from the Mets.
Health-related red flags notwithstanding, Walker has hit between 12 and 23 homers per season with average or better walk rates and above-average contact skills each season dating back to 2010, when he first established himself as a regular in Pittsburgh. By measure of OPS+ and wRC+, he’s been 14 to 15 percent better than the league-average hitter in that time. He’ll add to an already-imposing Yankees lineup and deepen an already-envious collection of quality infield options for GM Brian Cashman and first-year manager Aaron Boone.
The presence of Walker on the 25-man roster could also push utility infield option Tyler Wade to Triple-A early in the year, though fellow utilityman Ronald Torreyes also has options remaining. That group, paired with Drury, Torres and Andujar should leave the Yankees extremely well-positioned to deal with any injuries or unforeseen circumstances that may arise over the course of the season, and the added depth could theoretically go a long way toward keeping Walker healthy as well by affording him ample rest opportunities.
With a fairly modest overall commitment, the Yankees should still have roughly $10MM to work with as they seek midseason upgrades in advance of the nonwaiver trade deadline. Maintaining that type of flexibility has long been reported to be a critical factor for the Yankees in any free agent negotiations. That Walker’s price point fell to the range of several other solid veterans who have signed in this range in recent weeks allowed the Yankees to come away from the offseason with both of the infielders in which they held interest when previously negotiating with Walker’s camp and with the D-backs on the Drury swap.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Yankees Designate Jake Cave For Assignment
The Yankees announced that they’ve designated outfielder Jake Cave for assignment. His roster spot will go to infielder Neil Walker, whose one-year Major League deal has now been announced by the team.
Cave, 25, enjoyed a strong season between Double-A and Triple-A this past season, hitting .305/.351/.542 with 20 homers through 437 trips to the plate. Given his strong track record in the minors and previous interest from other clubs — the Reds selected Cave back in the 2015 Rule 5 Draft, though he didn’t crack their big league roster — it stands to reason that he could be of interest to other teams now that he’s lost his spot in the Bronx. Baseball America has ranked Cave among the Yankees’ top 30 prospects on multiple occasions, noting that he can play all three outfield spots and has average tools across the board, perhaps with the exception of his power.
Outfield depth isn’t much of a concern for the Yankees even after losing Cave, with Brett Gardner, Aaron Hicks, Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge and Jacoby Ellsbury all ticketed for the 25-man roster. The team also has Clint Frazier and Billy McKinney as 40-man options looming in the upper minors in the event should injuries arise.