Cubs Release Jim Henderson
The Cubs have released righty Jim Henderson, Jesse Rogers of ESPNChicago.com tweets. The veteran was in camp on a minor-league deal.
Henderson had an opt-out opportunity coming up next Wednesday, but the club had obviously already made up its mind. He struggled through 4 2/3 innings this spring, allowing five runs on seven hits and five walks while recording three strikeouts.
The veteran reliever had shown renewed signs of life last year, when he pitched 35 innings for the Mets. While he ended up with a 4.11 ERA, he showed a 93 mph+ fastball and notched 10.3 K/9 to go with 3.6 BB/9. Henderson also coughed up too many dingers and missed significant time with a biceps injury, though, which helps to explain why he wasn’t able to secure a 40-man spot over the offseason.
Chicago pared back its bullpen group rather significantly today. Other hurlers moved out of MLB camp were righties Jake Buchanan and Alec Mills, who were optioned, as well as non-roster invitees Williams Perez, Dylan Floro, and David Rollins.
Rays Release David Carpenter
The Rays have released veteran righty David Carpenter, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reports on Twitter. Also cut loose from the organization was fellow right-hander Jeff Walters.
Signed to a minors deal over the winter, the 31-year-old Carpenter was hoping to make it back to the majors for the first time since 2015. He had struggled to gain traction last year, too, while attempting to work back from shoulder issues that derailed his MLB career.
Carpenter worked to a 2.63 ERA with 10.0 K/9 and 2.6 BB/9 over 126 innings over the course of the 2013-14 seasons, making him a high-quality setup option. But he was not the same pitcher in the following campaign, striking out just 5.5 batters per nine in an injury-shortened year.
The righty has actually been pretty good this spring, allowing three earned runs on seven hits over 8 2/3 innings. He recorded six strikeouts and didn’t issue a single walk in that span. Clearly, though, the Rays still didn’t see quite enough reason to expect he’d be able to contribute in the majors this year, so Carpenter will presumably go searching for another opportunity.
As for Walters, 29, it once seemed likely he’d contribute to the Mets pen. But he struggled with consistency and turned in a down year in 2016 at Triple-A, where he worked to a 5.89 ERA with 6.6 K/9 and 3.8 BB/9 over 65 2/3 innings. Walters landed in MLB camp with the Rays, but struggled in his 4 2/3 frames of Grapefruit League action.
David DeJesus Retires
Veteran outfielder David DeJesus announced today on Twitter that he’s officially retiring from the game. He’ll join the CSN Chicago studio team for the upcoming season.
The news certainly doesn’t come as much of a surprise after the 37-year-old sat out the 2016 season. He ended his time in the majors with a brief and unsuccessful stint with the Angels, who declined a club option for his services last year under the contract the team inherited when it acquired him from the Rays.
DeJesus had inked that two-year deal with Tampa Bay after a separate series of late-season transactions — he was claimed by the Nationals and then by the Rays shortly thereafter — left him with the new organization late in the 2013 season. He ultimately provided the Rays with 647 plate appearances of .254/.333/.394 hitting in what was his final significant stop in the game.
By that point, of course, the left-handed-hitting DeJesus was mostly a platoon player who was utilized against right-handed pitching. Earlier in his career, though, he was deployed on a fairly regular basis.
From his debut season in 2003 through the 2010 campaign, DeJesus slashed a solid .289/.360/.427 with 61 home runs for the Royals, representing his lengthiest and most productive stint with a single organization. That was an excellent return on the up-front investment for Kansas City, which had drafted him in the fourth round of the 2000 draft.
After an injury shortened his 2010 campaign, DeJesus was dealt to the A’s, where he didn’t quite perform to expectations. Still, the Cubs’ then-new front office signed him to a two-year deal — the first signing that it made. Installed as the regular right fielder while also spending time in center, DeJesus turned in a sturdy overall effort (.258/.343/.403) over his 900 plate appearances in Chicago.
In the aggregate, DeJesus enjoyed a productive, 13-year run in the majors. He tallied 24.7 fWAR and 22.9 rWAR along the way, and will be remembered as a steady and solid all-around performer. MLBTR wishes him the best of luck in his new venture.
Brewers Release Joba Chamberlain, Ryan Webb
The Brewers have released veteran righties Joba Chamberlain and Ryan Webb, per a club announcement. Both had been signed to minor-league deals over the offseason.
Though he allowed only three runs in his eight spring frames, Chamberlain managed only two strikeouts to go with five walks and ten base knocks. That was much the same story as his 2016 campaign, when he worked to a 2.25 ERA over twenty innings with the Indians but coughed up 11 walks (against 18 punch-outs) in the process.
In 342 career relief appearances, Chamberlain carries a 3.56 ERA and has held opposing hitters to a .247/.318/.379 batting line. But he last turned in a full and productive campaign in 2014 with the Tigers. Still, it seems likely he’ll catch on with another organization in the coming days.
Webb, meanwhile, only received three innings of work in camp, allowing just a single hit and earned run but failing to record a strikeout while issuing two free passes. Like Chamberlain, he’s a 31-year-old reliever who has had a fair bit of MLB success, with a 3.43 lifetime ERA in nearly 400 frames at the game’s highest level. But he struggled to a 5.19 ERA last year in his 17 1/3 innings with the Rays, coughing up 27 hits in the process.
Minor MLB Transactions: 3/22/17
Here are the latest minor moves from around baseball, with the newest transactions at the top of the post…
- The Braves released southpaw Matt Marksberry, according to the pitcher himself earlier this week on his Facebook page. Marksberry posted a 5.06 ERA, 7.8 K/9 and 1.35 K/BB rate over 26 2/3 innings with Atlanta from 2015-16. He suffered a severe health scare last fall when he was placed in a medically-induced coma following a seizure that caused a collapsed lung, though Marksberry appears to be recovering well from that terrifying situation.
- The Cardinals signed righty Josh Zeid to a minor league deal, as per Zeid himself via Twitter. Zeid pitched 48 1/3 innings out of the Astros bullpen in 2013-14, after joining the organization as part of the trade package sent by Philadelphia to Houston for Hunter Pence in July 2011. Zeid spent 2015 and 2016 in the minors with the Tigers and Mets, respectively, and he most recently pitched for Israel in the World Baseball Classic.
- Outfielder David Denson announced his retirement from baseball via a message on his Facebook page. Denson made history in 2015 when he became the first active player in affiliated baseball to publicly announce that he was gay, and he tells Tom Haudricourt and Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that “leaving the game has nothing to do with my coming out. That wasn’t a factor at all. This was a decision I made purely from a baseball standpoint.” Instead, Denson said that he simply lost his passion for playing the game. Denson was a 15th-round pick of the Brewers in the 2013 draft, and he hit .229/.338/.368 over 1269 career plate appearances, making it to the High-A level in Milwaukee’s farm system.
- The Blue Jays released outfielder Jacob Anderson, Baseball America’s Matt Eddy reports. Toronto picked Anderson out of high school with the 35th overall selection of the 2011 draft, though he only made it as high as A-ball in five pro seasons, managing a .204/.271/.302 slash line.
Twins Release Ryan Vogelsong
The Twins have granted right-hander Ryan Vogelsong his release, the club announced to reporters, including Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press (Twitter links). Vogelsong asked for an early release from his minor league contract (Minnesota didn’t have to make a decision on his status until March 28) and the Twins granted the request to give the veteran more time to potentially catch on with another team.
The 39-year-old signed a minor league deal with the Twins in January and was competing for a job in the team’s bullpen or potentially as a fifth starter, especially in the wake of Trevor May‘s season-ending UCL tear. According to Berardino, however, other pitchers had moved ahead of Vogelsong in the fifth starter battle, as Vogelsong was hampered by lagging velocity.
Even in his prime, Vogelsong wasn’t much of a power pitcher, relying instead of soft contact rather than missed bats to generate outs. At his best, Vogelsong was a valuable and durable rotation arm for the Giants from 2011-2014, posting a 3.74 ERA over 657 2/3 IP in that stretch and solidly contributing to San Francisco’s World Series titles in 2012 and 2014.
Vogelsong posted a 4.81 ERA, 6.7 K/9 and 1.53 K/BB rate over 82 1/3 innings for the Pirates in 2016, a season shortened by a frightening injury suffered when Vogelsong was hit in the face by a Jordan Lyles fastball. Vogelsong underwent surgery to correct an orbital fracture and was worried about losing his vision, though he ended up returning to the field two months later.
Rangers Agree To New Contract With Robinson Chirinos
2:25pm: Chirinos will earn $2.25MM next year and the option is valued at $2.375MM ($100K buyout), Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram tweets. There are also escalators based upon how many times he comes to bat in the upcoming campaign.
2:05pm: The Rangers have announced the extension of a catcher — but not the one who has grabbed headlines thus far over the offseason. Reserve backstop Robinson Chirinos has agreed to a new deal that will guarantee his 2018 salary and tack on a club option for the following campaign. Salary terms have not yet been reported.
While Texas may yet agree to a new deal with starter Jonathan Lucroy, who’ll be a free agent after they season, the club now has some insurance — or, at least, a reserve option — in place. Chirinos was eligible for arbitration for the final time in 2018 after agreeing to a $1.95MM salary for the upcoming campaign. The deal gives the Rangers control over him for an additional season.
Certainly, there’s cause to think that the 32-year-old Chirinos could be a semi-regular option if Lucroy ends up moving on. Over the past three seasons, he has compiled a .233/.307/.437 batting line and contributed 32 long balls over 781 plate appearances. That’s solidly average offensive production, which is better than can be said for most catchers.
Astros Outright Max Stassi
The Astros have outrighted catcher Max Stassi off of the club’s 40-man roster, MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart was among those to report on Twitter. He has been assigned to Triple-A after clearing waivers.
Stassi, who just turned 26, had seemed destined to play a significant role for Houston last year before an injury delayed his start to the year. He ended up seeing just nine games of MLB action, representing his fourth-straight season of minimal major league time.
At Triple-A, Stassi again struggled to boost his offensive performance. All said, he has produced at just a .231/.290/.379 clip with 29 long balls in 1,019 plate appearances at the highest level of the minors.
White Sox Extend Tim Anderson
The White Sox have officially reached agreement on a long-term deal that’ll keep shortstop Tim Anderson in the organization for the foreseeable future. Anderson, who is represented by Reynolds Sports Management, will receive a guaranteed $25MM over six years — including a $1MM buyout on two option years valued at $12.5MM and $14MM, respectively.
Anderson, of course, was already under Chicago’s control for quite some time. Given that he only accrued 115 days of service in his MLB debut last season, he couldn’t have qualified for free agency before 2023 and wouldn’t have hit arbitration eligibility until at least 2020. This deal, then, represents a bid by the South Siders to achieve cost certainty and pick up control over two would-be free agent seasons from the young shortstop.
For Anderson, he’ll lock in earnings now while giving up the right to control his destiny after 2022, which will be his age-29 campaign. Though he’s leaving some open-market upside on the table, Anderson won’t need to prove anything more to take home the annual salaries promised in the contract. He will receive successive paydays of $850K, $1MM, $1.4MM, $4MM, $7.25MM, and $9.5MM over the deal’s guaranteed years.
At $25MM, the guarantee handily tops the $20MM the Rays paid righty Chris Archer in 2014. That had set a record for contracts given to players with less than a full year of MLB service time. Such contracts are quite rare, of course. The Rays have mostly cornered the market to this point, with Evan Longoria and Matt Moore preceding Archer in receiving sub-1 service class extensions. Catcher Salvador Perez was promised just $7MM from the Royals in his deal. And the Astros promised $10MM to Jon Singleton before he appeared in the majors.
That last contract is the only one that hasn’t (yet) paid out handsomely from the team’s perspective, though that’s not to say there isn’t any value to the right player. Singleton may never establish himself as a big leaguer, but already has life-changing money to show for his professional career. (I argued at the time it was a fair bargain for him.) Longoria and Perez later struck much larger deals with their respective organizations, with the latter in particular seemingly receiving consideration from the team that his original contract did not remotely reflect his true value.
In Anderson’s case, the reasoning for the extension from his perspective isn’t difficult to see at all. His guarantee and contract structure aren’t altogether different from those achieved by much more established players. Talented up-the-middle, 2+ service-class performers Ender Inciarte and Odubel Herrera each got $30MM and change over the winter from the Braves and Phillies, respectively. Cardinals second baseman Kolten Wong gave up only one option on his five-year, $25.5MM contract as a 2+ player. And most interestingly, perhaps, the Sox previously picked up seven years of control (two via option) over since-traded outfielder Adam Eaton for a promise of only $23.5MM. It’s worth noting, too, that Anderson’s option years come with a relatively large price tag.
All said, it seems to be an attractive deal for Anderson, but it will still be a bargain if he grows into the quality regular that the team obviously expects him to be. Drafted as something of a high-risk project in the first round of the 2013 draft, Anderson moved swiftly to the majors despite substandard plate discipline. Reaching the bigs last year, the 23-year-old showed that his tool set could play even without the strikeout-and-walk numbers you’d hope for. He managed a .283/.306/.432 slash with nine home runs over 431 plate appearances despite tallying 117 strikeouts to go with a paltry 13 walks. The fleet-footed infielder was undoubtedly aided by one of the game’s highest batting averages on balls in play, though he has a history of doing the same in the minors. He also hinted at some power upside with a .149 isolated power mark.
Clearly, Chicago is willing to bet that the bat still has room to grow. But Anderson doesn’t need to become an All-Star for the contract to pay off. Importantly, he rated at about six runs above average in the field last year in the eyes of both UZR and DRS, suggesting that Anderson may provide big value with the glove — especially if he can pare down the errors (14). And perhaps there’s also a possibility that Anderson will increase his output on the basepaths. He swiped 21 total bags last year in the majors and at Triple-A, but stole 49 at Double-A over the 2015 seasons.
It’s tempting to wonder whether this agreement says anything about the South Siders’ anticipated contention timeline and rebuilding strategy. The organization just kicked off its youth movement this winter, after all, but has already committed to Anderson for the long haul. But that’s not necessarily unique — the 2013 Astros signed an extension with Jose Altuve in the midst of an 111-loss campaign, for instance — and is even less surprising for a White Sox club that has had more than its share of successes with early-career extensions (though none so soon as Anderson’s). In addition to the above-noted Eaton, the Sox made out like bandits with another 2+ player in Chris Sale — whose appealing contract was also cashed in for prospects in the winter — along with fellow southpaw standout Jose Quintana, who signed with just 1.133 days of service.
Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports first reported the agreement (Twitter links) after MLB.com’s Scott Merkin reported yesterday that the sides were in talks. Bob Nightengale of USA Today and Jon Heyman of Fan Rag (Twitter links) reported the financial terms.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Twins To Add Craig Breslow To 40-Man
The Twins will add southpaw Craig Breslow to their 40-man roster, according to Rob Bradford of WEEI.com (via Twitter). The veteran had an opt-out opportunity last night.
Evidently, Minnesota saw enough from Breslow — and his revamped delivery — to make the move, all but ensuring he’ll break camp on the active roster. Breslow will stand to earn $1.25MM on the year — with $1MM more in available incentives — under the minor-league deal he signed in early February.
After showcasing a new approach over the offseason, the 36-year-old drew some interest from organizations that hoped he might stage a late-career renaissance. Long a quality reliever, he had struggled to a 4.93 ERA over the past three seasons.
He has responded thus far with six innings of 1.50 ERA ball this spring, allowing just three hits but also seven walks against his five strikeouts. There are obviously still some kinks to work out, but Minnesota’s new front office clearly thinks there’s enough promise — and enough value in Breslow’s clubhouse presence — to give him another crack at the majors.