Padres Avoid Arbitration With Carter Capps
The Padres have avoided arbitration with righty Carter Capps, according to Jon Heyman of Fan Rag (via Twitter). Capps will play at a $1,062,500 rate for the 2018 season.
That’s a bit less than the $1.3MM payday that MLBTR projected him to earn via arbitration, though Capps did not have a strong case for much of a raise. Last year, in his first season of eligibility, he earned $987,500, but did not pitch much in the ensuing season. He can be controlled for one additional campaign through the arb process.
Capps, 27, came to the Friars in the complicated 2016 Andrew Cashner deadline swap. At the time, Capps was recovering from Tommy John surgery. He finally made it back to the hill late in the 2017 campaign, though only in time to throw 12 1/3 innings. And his season ended with another procedure, this time to address thoracic outlet syndrome.
The latest surgery came after Capps showed diminished form in his return to the majors. He managed only seven strikeouts against two walks in his 11 appearances late in 2017. Of greater concern, perhaps, he worked in the 93 mph range with his fastball, over five miles per hour less than his peak.
Still, the Padres are obviously willing to stake a fairly minor bet on a rebound; the hope, perhaps, is that he can show renewed life after the thoracic outlet procedure. The upside is undeniable: Capps was utterly dominant in a breakout 2015 campaign, when he ran a 25.4% swinging-strike rate, 16.8 K/9 against 2.0 BB/9, and 1.16 ERA over 31 innings.
Minor MLB Transactions: 1/2/18
We’ll track the day’s minor moves in this post:
- The Reds have reached a minor league agreement with utilityman Phil Gosselin, Chris Cotillo of SB Nation reports (Twitter link). The 29-year-old Gosselin divided last season between the Pirates and Rangers organizations, hitting an ugly .146/.180/.188 over a small sample of big league PAs (50). While Gosselin was also ineffective at the Triple-A level (.260/.299/.326 in 292 PAs), he’s not far removed from a useful two-year showing in the majors. From 2015-16, Gosselin combined for 1.4 fWAR on the strength of a .280/.340/.411 line in 358 trips to the plate with the Braves and Diamondbacks.
Earlier updates:
- The Phillies have agreed to a minor league contract with right-handed reliever Steve Geltz, Cotillo tweets. Geltz worked exclusively with the Dodgers’ Triple-A affiliate in 2017 and posted a 2.67 ERA, 9.67 K/9 against 4.00 BB/9 and a 37.1 percent groundball rate over 27 innings. The 30-year-old previously saw major league action with the Angels (2012) and Rays (2014-16). Across 104 1/3 big league frames, Geltz owns a 4.23 ERA to accompany 8.54 K/9, 3.71 BB/9 and a 28.8 percent grounder mark.
- Infielder Ivan De Jesus Jr. is joining the Red Sox on a minor league deal, per Cotillo (Twitter link). De Jesus, 30, has past experience with the Boston organization, having been a member of it in 2012 and ’14. More recently, he spent last season with the Brewers’ Triple-A club and batted a robust .345/.407/.488 in 466 trips to the plate. He hasn’t been nearly as successful across 545 major league PAs with the Dodgers, Red Sox and Reds, having slashed .242/.303/.327.
- The Cardinals have added backstop Steven Baron on a minors pact, according to MLB.com’s Jenifer Langosch (via Twitter). (As she also notes, and we covered previously, the club also added catcher Francisco Pena.) Baron, 27, was the 33rd overall pick in the 2009 draft, but he has never hit much at all in the minors and has only minimal MLB experience. Still, he’ll represent another upper-level depth option for the Cards, who’ll become his first organization other than the Mariners. Baron spent most of 2017 at Triple-A, where he slashed .256/.339/.329 in 187 plate appearances.
Dodgers Acquire Dylan Baker
12:10pm: The transaction actually occurred as a trade, with the Brewers set to receive cash or a player to be named later in the deal, per a club announcement.
11:13am: The Dodgers have claimed righty Dylan Baker off waivers from the Brewers, according to a tweet from Chris Cotillo of SB Nation. Baker had been designated for assignment by Milwaukee.
The 25-year-old hurler has spent his entire professional playing career to date with the Indians, who took him in the fifth round of the 2012 draft out of Western Nevada College. He was claimed by the Brewers earlier in the offseason, though obviously he won’t end up suiting up with that organization (barring future waiver movement).
Though Baker has not thrown much of late, owing to Tommy John surgery, he has obviously drawn the attention of scouts around the game. In 2017, Baker worked to a 2.84 ERA in 12 2/3 Double-A frames over 13 appearances, recording a healthy 10:1 K/BB ratio. He had mostly worked previously as a starter, so it’s somewhat unclear what role he might occupy moving forward.
Minor MLB Transactions: 12/30/17
Some minor moves from around baseball…
- The Padres released right-hander Jake Smith earlier this month, according to Baseball America’s Matt Eddy. Originally a 48th-round pick for the Giants in the 2011 draft, Smith has a 3.23 ERA, 11.9 K/9 and 2.86 K/BB rate over 253 2/3 minor league innings, working as a reliever in all but five of his 186 career appearances. He managed just 26 2/3 IP in 2017, however, with injuries limiting his time on the field. Smith’s only MLB experience consists of four innings for San Diego in 2016.
Padres To Sign Chris Young
SATURDAY: Young’s incentives begin at five games started and 30 innings pitched, and they can max out at approximately 30 starts and 120 innings, per Chris Cotillo of SB Nation (Twitter link).
FRIDAY, 8:58pm: Young can earn a $1MM base salary if he makes the team, ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick tweets. The deal also includes as much as $6MM in potential incentives, with games started and innings pitched providing the standard.
6:50pm: The Padres are adding another former starter on a minors deal after striking agreement with Chris Young, according to Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune (via Twitter). The 38-year-old will join a Spring Training rotation battle that now also includes Tyson Ross.
Young, 38, opened the 2017 campaign with the Royals but was released in late June. He has rested up since, with reports indicating that he intended to ramp back up for another attempt at what would be his 14th MLB campaign.
At this point, it’s difficult to expect much out of Young, who stumbled to a 6.52 ERA with 8.8 K/9 and 4.3 BB/9 in 118 2/3 frames in the majors since the start of 2016. Interestingly, that slippage has occurred even with Young sporting a swinging-strike rate of over 11% — levels he had maintained over a full season only once in his career — by drastically increasing his slider usage. Then again, he has also been touched for 2.7 home runs per nine over the past two seasons.
Perhaps, though, Young can still find a way to be effective, particularly after a lengthy layoff. Before boosting his whiff rate, he had actually managed two consecutive seasons with excellent results. In 288 1/3 frames between 2014 and 2015, he worked to a 3.40 ERA. And he has continued to post above-average infield fly rates even as the other tinkering has left him prone to the long ball.
Yankees Re-Sign CC Sabathia
The Yankees have officially agreed to terms with left-hander CC Sabathia on a one-year contract worth a reported $10MM. Sabathia, a client of Roc Nation Sports, can also earn $500K apiece upon reaching 155, 165, 175, and 185 innings. He will have full no-trade protection by operation of ten-and-five rights.
Sabathia has spent the past nine seasons with the Yankees, and he’ll return to a rotation that also includes Luis Severino, Masahiro Tanaka, Sonny Gray and Jordan Montgomery. It’s not a surprise that he’s returning to the Bronx; MLBTR predicted he’d re-sign with the Bombers, and Joel Sherman of the NY Post reports (via Sabathia’s agent, Kyle Thousand) that the Yankees “always wanted Sabathia back and he did not want to leave.” He also mentions that the Yankees would like to add one more starter, likely through a trade. Sherman adds in a subsequent tweet that while there were competitive offers for the lefty that made Sabathia take his time, he feels there is “unfinished business to attend to” with the Yanks.
[Related: Updated New York Yankees depth chart]
Sabathia had a respectable 2017 campaign, posting a 3.69 ERA that was his best mark since 2012. He induced soft contact off the bats of opposing hitters 24.1% of the time while posting a 2.40 K/BB ratio and 49.9% ground ball rate. Sabathia’s solid 2017 performance continued into the postseason, where he allowed just five earned runs in 19 innings across four starts, striking out a batter per inning. Perhaps some of his success this past season can be attributed to less exposure to hitters the third time through the order; Sabathia averaged fewer than 5 2/3 innings per start during the regular season and below 5 during the playoffs.
Sabathia was a first round pick of the Indians all the way back in 1998. He was excellent in his seven full seasons for Cleveland, including his Cy Young-winning performance in 2007. The Indians traded their prized lefty to the Brewers in 2008 in exchange for Matt LaPorta, Rob Bryson and a player-to-be-named-later that ended up being Michael Brantley. He hit the open market following an excellent stretch run in Milwaukee and signed a then-record-setting seven-year, $161MM pact with the Yankees, and has called New York his home ever since (he signed an extension with the club back in October of 2011). His five excellent starts in the 2009 postseason went a long way in helping the Bombers win a world championship that year; he managed a sparkling 1.98 ERA across 36 1/3 innings.
Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (Twitter links) reported the agreement. Jon Heyman of Fan Rag added details on the incentives (via Twitter).
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Twins Sign Zach Duke
DEC. 29: Duke will receive $2.15MM, Jon Heyman of Fan Rag tweets. Per Berardino, via Twitter, Duke can add $200K bonuses for making his 40th and 50th appearances, $300K at #55 and #60, and another $500K if he takes the ball 65 times.
DEC. 26, 9:05pm: Duke’s guarantee is “just over” $2MM and he can earn up to $1.5MM more via incentives, Berardino tweets.
5:30pm: The Twins have officially announced Duke’s one-year contract.
10:10am: 1500 ESPN’s Darren Wolfson tweets that Duke’s contract is a Major League deal that is expected to be worth between $1.5MM and $2MM. Minnesota’s 40-man roster is full with the addition of Duke.
DEC. 25: The Twins have agreed to a deal with veteran lefty Zach Duke, as KFAN’s Paul Lambert first tweeted. Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer-Press confirms on Twitter, adding that the deal is still pending a physical. Terms of the arrangement aren’t yet known. Duke is a client of ISE Baseball.
Duke, 34, is coming off of a limited 2017 campaign. Despite undergoing Tommy John surgery in mid-October of 2016, he managed to bounce back in time to make 27 appearances for the Cardinals.
As might have been expected, given his rapid return, Duke showed some rust. He recorded only 5.9 K/9 and allowed far more hard contact (37.0%) than usual while posting a 3.93 ERA over 18 1/3 frames. On the other hand, the southpaw allowed only a .197/.284/.364 batting line to opposing hitters (with minimal platoon splits) and generated rates of swinging strikes (10.9%) and groundballs (50.4%) that were not out of line with the figures he has maintained in recent seasons.
[Related: Updated Minnesota Twins depth chart]
For Minnesota, the move gives the team a potentially solid second lefty to pair with Taylor Rogers at what will likely turn out to be a marginal commitment. If Duke can rebound to anything like the form he showed over the prior three seasons — over which he posted a 2.74 ERA with 10.4 K/9 and 3.9 BB/9 over 180 1/3 innings — then he’ll surely represent a true bargain.
The Twins have already added Fernando Rodney to bolster a questionable late-inning unit. Perhaps, then, the organization will turn its focus to addressing other needs, though surely additional bullpen moves will at least be considered. The 2017 unit, after all, rated 22nd among all MLB teams by measure of both fWAR and ERA.
Rockies Designate Shane Carle
The Rockies have designated righty Shane Carle for assignment, according to the MLB Roster Moves Twitter account. His roster spot was needed for the team’s signing of closer Wade Davis.
Carle, 26, made his MLB debut last year in Colorado, though he saw only four innings of action. That’s too small a sample to tell much of anything, but he did exhibit a 94.0 mph average fastball.
As in 2016, Carle spent most of the year at Triple-A, where he worked primarily as a reliever after spending most of his prior career in the rotation. The former tenth-round pick ended the 2017 campaign with a 5.37 ERA with 7.3 K/9 and 3.2 BB/9 over 62 innings.
Rockies Sign Wade Davis
The Rockies have officially agreed to a contract with free-agent closer Wade Davis, as Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports first reprted. Davis, a client of Jet Sports Management, receives a three-year, $52MM contract that includes a vesting player option for a fourth season which could take the deal’s value to $66MM over four years. That contract’s $17.33MM annual value is a record among relievers, Passan notes.
The fourth-year option, worth $15MM, will vest as a player option for the 2021 season if Davis finishes 30 games in 2020. If it does not vest, it’ll instead be a mutual option with a $1MM buyout, per Passan. Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports (via Twitter) that Davis will earn $16MM in 2018, $18MM in 2019 and $17MM in 2020. FanRag’s Jon Heyman tweets that Davis’s deal includes a $1MM assignment bonus if he is traded, adding that he’ll also pick up full no-trade rights after being traded once.
The addition of Davis seems likely to end the Rockies’ pursuit of a reunion with 2017 closer Greg Holland, who declined a $15MM player option and rejected a $17.4MM qualifying offer following the season. Davis, too, rejected a qualifying offer, meaning he’ll cost the Rockies a pick in the 2018 draft.
As a team that benefited from revenue sharing and did not exceed the luxury tax in 2017, the Rockies will forfeit their third-highest selection in next year’s draft. For the Rockies, who have a selection in Competitive Balance Round A, their third-highest pick will be their second-round selection in 2018. The Cubs, meanwhile, will secure a compensatory pick after Competitive Balance Round B. (While Davis’ contract is north of $50MM, the Cubs are a revenue sharing payor, thus disqualifying them for compensation after the first round of the draft.)
[Related: Updated Colorado Rockies depth chart and Rockies payroll outlook]
Colorado has clearly identified the bullpen as an area of focus this offseason, as they’ve now dished out more than $100MM worth of guarantees in the form of Davis’ $52MM and the respective three-year, $27MM deals given to lefty Jake McGee and right-hander Bryan Shaw. That continues the aggressive bullpen spending the team began last winter when signing Mike Dunn and Holland in free agency.
Davis, of course, will capably step into the void left by Holland’s departure and could very well serve as an upgrade. In 58 2/3 innings with the Cubs last year, Davis pitched to a 2.30 ERA with 12.1 K/9, 4.3 BB/9 and a 40.5 percent ground-ball rate while collecting 32 saves. Those excellent run-prevention numbers continued an impressive run of dominance for Davis, who owns a 1.45 ERA in 241 1/3 innings since converting to a reliever on a full-time basis in 2014.
The 2017 season wasn’t without red flags, though. Davis’ 40.5 percent grounder rate marked a significant drop-off from the 48.5 percent clip he posted in 2016, and his 94.3 mph average fastball velocity was his lowest since moving to the bullpen. That velocity drop is all the more troubling when juxtaposed with a 2016 season in which Davis landed on the disabled list with a forearm strain.
There’s risk in any long-term deal for a reliever, though, and the Rockies’ aggressive spending in this market has demonstrated less aversion to those perils than most clubs throughout the league. For a Colorado team that features a very young and largely inexperienced rotation, the stockpiling of quality relief arms will help manager Bud Black to lessen the workload of his young arms by leaning more heavily on a group of experienced late-inning options.
Of course, it’s worth bearing in mind that the three additions won’t necessarily enhance the Rockies’ 2018 unit beyond the one it possessed in the season prior. By the end of the season, the relief corps included Holland, McGee, and midseason trade acquisition Pat Neshek. At a minimum, though, the organization can likely now anticipate that it’ll enter the coming season with a relief group that’s as good or better than its productive ’17 outfit.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Minor MLB Transactions: 12/29/17
We’ll keep track of the game’s minor transactions for the day here…
- Right-hander Jay Jackson has re-signed with the Hiroshima Carp of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, the team announced (English link via the Japan Times). He’ll take home $1.5MM for the 2018 season. Jackson, 30, had reportedly garnered interest from multiple MLB clubs, though his return to the Carp on a one-year deal suggests that any offers he may have received didn’t match the strength of a $1.5MM guarantee. The former Cubs farmhand and top 100 prospect (per Baseball America) won’t turn 31 until next offseason, though, so he could further drum up MLB interest with another strong performance in NPB. Thus far, in two seasons with the Carp, Jackson has logged 130 1/3 innings of relief with a pristine 1.86 ERA, 9.9 K/9 and 2.9 BB/9. Jackson briefly appeared in the Majors with the 2015 Padres and 4.89 ERA in nearly 600 Triple-A innings, though the bulk of those came as a starter.