Caleb Cotham Retires
Reliever Caleb Cotham has decided to hang up his spikes, he announced on Twitter. Cotham, 29, had recently agreed to a minor-league deal with the Mariners.
Cotham isn’t being forced out of the game due to a catastrophic injury, though he has had his share of injury woes both recently and in the past. Instead, it seems, he’s not interested in continuing to endure the toll of the grind.
“For me it is time to explore how I can give back and offer value to the game of baseball in ways other than playing,” Cotham writes. “My love for the game has never been higher, I am just no longer willing to pay the emotional/physical price to rehab/play at the highest level.”
There’s no doubting the pressures and demands placed upon a player in Cotham’s situation. Over the past two years, he has bounced between the upper minors and the majors. While he was able to earn 35 MLB appearances, Cotham allowed 27 earned runs in that span and faced an uphill path to the Mariners’ active roster this year.
Cotham first cracked the bigs with the Yankees after a breakthrough 2015 season in which he threw 57 innings of 2.21 ERA ball with 9.6 K/9 and 2.1 BB/9 in the upper minors. He ended up being dealt to the Reds as part of the return for Aroldis Chapman.
While he made the Opening Day roster with Cincinnati, Cotham contributed to the team’s historically dreadful relief work. He was ultimately sidelined with shoulder inflammation and then suffered a season-ending knee injury upon his return to the minors. (That string of ailments surely brought back unwanted memories; originally a fifth-round pick out of Vanderbilt, Cotham threw only 31 innings from 2009 through 2011 owing to knee and shoulder surgery.) The Reds outrighted him off of their 40-man roster in late October.
Cubs, Kris Bryant Agree To Record Pre-Arb Deal
The Cubs have agreed with star third baseman Kris Bryant on a record-setting pre-arbitration salary, Jon Heyman of Fan Rag reports. Fresh off of a year in which he won the National League’s Most Valuable Player award, Bryant will take home $1.05MM.
Chicago also shared some of its World Series wealth with righty Kyle Hendricks, who’ll earn a hefty $760,500, per Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times. Hendricks was another key performer for the Cubs, turning in an outstanding campaign that saw him land third in the N.L. Cy Young voting. Larger-than-usual salaries are also on tap for Addison Russell ($644K), Javier Baez ($609K), and Kyle Schwarber ($565,500), per Wittenmyer’s report.
Bryant’s payday doesn’t blow the prior record out of the water, but does land a bit north of Mike Trout‘s 2014 salary of $1MM. Recently, standout Red Sox outfielder Mookie Betts was renewed at $950K after his own high-quality season. Notably, unlike Trout and Betts, Bryant has yet to achieve his second full year of MLB service — owing to the team’s controversial decision to delay his MLB debut in 2015.
The 25-year-old star will reach arbitration next year, though, as he’ll easy qualify for Super Two status. If he posts anything approaching the numbers from his first two season — including a composite .284/.377/.522 batting line and 65 total home runs — Bryant will earn a massive raise in his first trip through the arb process.
If the sides discuss a larger contract, Trout could again provide a target. His six-year, $144.5MM pact, which replaced the above-noted arb deal in 2014, was the second-largest contract ever given to a 2+ player. Buster Posey still holds the record for that service class at $159MM over eight years. Odds are that the Scott Boras-repped Bryant would be looking for quite a bit more money than either of those two players; certainly, it’s arguable that the market has moved northward since that time, and the Trout contract seems a notable bargain in retrospect for a player of that quality (even given the remaining club control the organization had).
Hendricks, 27, was in the 2+ arb class, but fell well shy of Super Two eligibility. After a solid 2015 effort, he turned one of the most surprising campaigns in the league last year. Over 190 frames, Hendricks worked to a National League-leading 2.13 ERA with 8.1 K/9 and 2.1 BB/9. He, too, will be in line for big first-year arb earnings if he can replicate that success.
Minor MLB Transactions: 3/7/17
We’ll keep tabs on the day’s minor moves right here:
- In a surprise move, lefty John Lannan is heading back to the Nationals on a minors pact., Baseball America’s Matt Eddy reports in his latest compilation of moves from around the league. Now 32, Lannan provided the Nats with 783 2/3 innings of 4.01 ERA ball from 2007 through 2012, but didn’t exactly leave the organization on the best of terms. He appeared briefly in each of the next two seasons, and has toiled in the upper minors since. With few apparent opportunities for Lannan to regain his prior standing, it seems there’ll be some interesting changes afoot. Upon his return to the Nats organization, he’ll be working to re-make himself into a submariner relief pitcher, according to Jorge Castillo of the Washington Post (via Twitter)
- Righty Matt Buschmann will join the Blue Jays on a minor-league deal, as Eddy further reports. The 33-year-old debuted in the majors last year with the D-Backs, though he received only three outings. He spent the bulk of the year at Triple-A, throwing 142 innings of 5.26 ERA ball with 5.8 K/9 and 3.4 BB/9.
- The White Sox have added a pair of players on minors deals, Eddy adds, with righty Jake Dunning and utilityman Tyler Ladendorf joining the mix. The 28-year-old Dunning had spent his entire career with the Giants organization. He hasn’t been up to the majors since 2014, and pitched to a 4.85 ERA with 6.5 K/9 and 4.4 BB/9 at Triple-A last year. Ladendorf, who tuns 29 today, received brief time in the majors in each of the last two seasons. The former second-round pick offers plenty of defensive versatility, but hasn’t shown much bat in the upper minors. He owns a lifetime .261/.327/.349 slash at Triple-A.
- The Nationals announced that catcher Spencer Kieboom has been assigned to Triple-A after clearing waivers. He had recently been designated for assignment to clear 40-man roster space. Kieboom will remain in camp as a non-roster player, though it’s all but certain he’ll head to the minors to open the year. The 25-year-old actually hasn’t yet played at Triple-A despite a very brief appearance in the majors last year. Kieboom hit .230/.324/.314 in his 359 plate appearances at the Double-A level in 2016.
Reds Claim Christian Walker, Designate Jumbo Diaz For Assignment
The Reds have claimed first baseman Christian Walker off waivers from the Braves and designated right-hander Jumbo Diaz for assignment in order to clear a spot on the 40-man roster, tweets Zach Buchanan of the Cincinnati Enquirer. Atlanta had just picked up Walker off waivers a couple of weeks ago, but they clearly weren’t able to succeed in passing him through waivers themselves.
Walker, 26 later this month, was long viewed as a potential first base/DH option in the Orioles organization, but both of those spots are blocked in the long-term by Chris Davis and Mark Trumbo. Beyond that, Walker had seen himself leapfrogged by fellow first base/DH prospect Trey Mancini within the Orioles’ ranks.
[Related: Updated Cincinnati Reds Depth Chart]
Walker saw brief cups of coffee with Baltimore in both 2014 and 2015, hitting just .148/.258/.296 in a minuscule sample of 31 plate appearances. And while the former fourth-round pick (2012) has turned in solid overall numbers across parts of three Triple-A campaigns, he’s never exactly exhibited any sort of mastery over upper-level minor league pitching. In 1332 plate appearances with Baltimore’s Triple-A affiliate in Norfolk, Walker has a .260/.324/.429 batting line to go along with 42 homers and 72 doubles.
While he’s been primarily a first baseman in his pro career, Walker did spend some time in left field last year (90 games), so he could be an option as a bench bat with Cincinnati. The Reds do have a left-handed-hitting right fielder in Scott Schebler, so Cincinnati could potentially utilize some sort of platoon if the team is comfortable with Walker’s relative lack of corner outfield experience. In that sense, he could be competing with non-roster invitee Ryan Raburn for a roster spot. Additionally, he has a minor league option remaining, so the Reds could simply send him to Louisville to open the season, where he’d serve as a depth option.
As for Diaz, the 33-year-old posted what looked on the surface to be a solid 3.14 ERA in 43 innings with the Reds last year, but his peripheral numbers painted a less optimistic picture. Diaz posted career-worst marks in K/9 (7.7), BB/9 (4.0), swinging-strike rate (10.4 percent) and average fastball velocity (95.9 mph). He also benefited greatly from a .239 average on balls in play and an 80.4 percent strand rate — both of which seem likely to regress in 2017 and beyond.
Of course, those velocity and swinging-strike rate marks are still better than the league average, so perhaps there’s hope yet that Diaz could rebound and again work as a serviceable middle-relief option. In 138 frames at the Major League level, Diaz sports a 3.65 ERA with a 144-to-51 K/BB ratio and a 43.7 percent ground-ball rate. Given his age and the current juncture of Spring Training, Diaz could certainly clear waivers and remain with the Reds in a non-roster capacity.
Minor MLB Transactions: 3/5/17
Here are the latest minor moves from around baseball…
- The Braves signed right-hander David Hale to a minor league deal earlier this winter, and the righty made his spring debut for Atlanta yesterday (hat tip to reader Paul Tate for his e-mail about the under-the-radar move). Hale was originally drafted his hometown Braves in 2009 and he posted a solid 3.30 ERA in 87 1/3 IP during his 2014 rookie season, pitching mostly out of the bullpen. He struggled after a January 2015 trade to the Rockies, however, and Hale pitched in just two big league games in 2016 before being claimed off waivers by the Orioles and eventually outrighted off their 40-man roster in August. Hale discussed his recent history and his return to the Braves earlier this week in a radio interview on Macon 93.1 FM’s Bill Shanks Show (audio link).
Minor MLB Transactions: 3/4/17
We’ll track the day’s minor moves here:
- The Mariners have outrighted infielder Mike Freeman after he cleared waivers, per a club announcement. He’ll head back to MLB camp as a non-roster player. GM Jerry Dipoto suggested yesterday that Freeman lost his place on the roster in large part because the club felt he was the likeliest of the reserve infield candidates to clear waivers. Now that he has, presumably, there’s still a chance he could crack the Opening Day roster, though he’ll also be at a disadvantage since he lost his 40-man spot.
- Righty Steve Johnson will join the Orioles on a minor-league deal, as Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com was among those to report on Twitter. The 29-year-old has spent five prior years in the O’s organization, cracking the majors in three seasons. Last year, he worked to a 4.32 ERA in 16 2/3 MLB frames with the Mariners, striking out 9.2 but walking 5.9 batters per nine. Johnson did produce better numbers at Triple-A, though, posting a 2.05 ERA in 22 innings with 10.6 K/9 and 2.5 BB/9. That continued a noticeable pattern in which Johnson struggles with free passes at the MLB level (5.6 BB/9 lifetime) despite carrying palatable (or better) rates in the upper minors.
Pre-Arb Contracts Of Note: Correa, Syndergaard, Turner
Every team takes a different approach to the negotiation of contracts with players who have yet to qualify for arbitration. Technically, there’s no obligation to pay them any more than the league minimum salary, which currently sits at $535K. But all teams make some allowance for increases above that amount. Some use formulas with varying inputs; others appear largely ad hoc. Some range well over the minimum; others allow for only de minimis bumps. Read here for more on the process; better still, check out Zach Links’s reporting on the subject from early 2014.
We already learned recently of one notable 2017 pre-arb contract situation, as the Red Sox elected to renew Mookie Betts. A renewal occurs when the club can’t get the player to agree to the salary. The result is the same — the player gets what the team is willing to give — but the player gets to make clear his disapproval. In that case, Betts still received a relatively massive payday, with his $950K salary trailing only Mike Trout (in 2014) among pre-arb players.
Here are a few more notable salaries that have been reported since:
- The Astros ended up renewing their own pre-arb star, Carlos Correa, per Jon Heyman of Fan Rag. But he’ll get quite a bit less than Betts; in fact, for the second straight year, Correa will earn only the league-minimum rate of pay. (To be fair, he’s also one service class behind Betts.) As MLBTR previously reported, Houston has in prior years utilized a formula-based system that allows players to earn relatively meager boosts over the minimum, though it’s not known whether that specific approach is still followed. Clearly, though, Correa — one of the game’s most exciting young talents — would have been offered at least something more than the minimum. Presumably, then, he was docked back down owing to his refusal to sign, which is another element the Astros have reportedly employed. It obviously remains to be seen whether there’ll be any long-term strain on the relationship between player and team, but it’s not hard to see the possibility.
- There’s perhaps less cause for angst between the Mets and young ace Noah Syndergaard, who’ll earn $605,500 in 2016 with his renewal, as Heyman tweets. That’s certainly a reasonably significant increase over the minimum, and it falls in line with the team’s prior approach to setting arb salaries, as Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports. Syndergaard was hoping to earn a bit more, and declined to sign on to the team’s offer, but New York did not apply any penalty in setting the renewal price. It seems that the relationship between player and team remains harmonious, per Sherman. Syndergaard, unlike Correa, can also look forward to much higher earnings in the near future, as he’s nearly certain to achieve Super Two status.
- Finally, the Nationals have agreed to a $554,900 salary with emergent star Trea Turner, according to Heyman (via Twitter). That’s rather a healthy rate of pay for a player who’ll enter the year with just 135 days of service, though Turner’s outstanding half-season of work in 2016 — .342/.370/.567 with 13 home runs and 33 steals over 324 plate appearances — more than justifies such an increase. With Turner’s deal in the books, the Nats were able to line up with all 22 of their arb-eligible players. Looking ahead for the youngster, who’ll be moving back to his accustomed shortstop position this year, the biggest impact on his earnings (beyond his play) won’t be the team’s decision on how much to pay him before he reaches arbitration. Instead, it’ll be whether he can qualify for Super Two status. Without a 2015 cameo in the books, he wouldn’t have much of a shot; as things stand, he’ll be touch-and-go to reach arb eligibility a year ahead of the pack.
White Sox Request Release Waivers On Brett Lawrie
In a surprising move, the White Sox announced on Friday that they’ve requested release waivers on infielder Brett Lawrie. Assuming Lawrie clears waivers — a fair bet, given his $3.5MM salary for the 2017 season — he’ll become a free agent upon clearing in 48 hours. The Sox, it should be noted, won’t be on the hook for the entirety of that salary. Arbitration contracts aren’t fully guaranteed until Opening Day, so the Sox will only be on the hook for about one-sixth of that salary (30 days’ termination pay) — or about $574K.
The 27-year-old Lawrie made MLBTR’s list of non-tender candidates back in early December on the heels of a poor first year with the South Siders. The ChiSox, though, elected to tender him a contract and Lawrie agreed to take an extremely rare arbitration pay cut (he earned $4.125MM in 2016) in order to avoid being cut loose. Acquired from Oakland last winter, Lawrie hit .248/.310/.413 with a dozen homers. Park-adjusted metrics like OPS+ (99) and wRC+ (92) thought his offense ranged anywhere from about league average to eight percent below the output of an average hitter.
Though Lawrie is a more experienced third baseman than second baseman, Chicago played him at second last season due to the acquisition of Todd Frazier. Defensive metrics weren’t kind to Lawrie in the largest single-season sample of work he’s received at second base, with Defensive Runs Saved pegging him at -4 and Ultimate Zone Rating pegging him at -5.5 runs.
A former first-round pick (16th overall by the Brewers in 2008), Lawrie once rated as one of baseball’s very best prospects and appeared poised to deliver on that hype upon debuting as a 21-year-old rookie in 2011. In that debut campaign with the Blue Jays — Milwaukee traded him to Toronto in exchange for Shaun Marcum in 2010 — Lawrie tallied 171 plate appearances and turned in a robust .293/.373/.580 batting line with nine homers and seven steals. His sophomore campaign wasn’t nearly that impressive, but he showed promise by hitting .273/.324/.405 as a 22-year-old. Since that time, though, his offensive output has never really taken off. And, in recent years, Lawrie has gone from a very low 15.4 percent strikeout rate to a lofty 28.4 percent mark in 2016.
Diamondbacks Sign T.J. McFarland To Minor League Deal
The D-backs announced on Friday that they’ve signed southpaw T.J. McFarland to a minor league contract and invited him to Major League Spring Training. The former Orioles reliever was designated for assignment and subsequently released last week. Baltimore had reportedly hoped to retain McFarland on a new minor league deal, but the left-hander apparently saw a better opportunity in the Diamondbacks organization.
The 27-year-old McFarland enjoyed a solid season with the Orioles in 2014 — one year after spending the 2013 season with the team as a Rule 5 pick. However, he’s yet to replicate the 2.76 ERA he notched in 58 2/3 frames that season. Rather, he’s struggled to a 5.68 ERA with 4.6 K/9 against 3.9 BB/9 in his past 65 big league innings. McFarland was hit hard by left-handed opponents last year — the worst season of his career — but held opposing lefties to a combined .246/.309/.330 batting line in a total of 194 plate appearances between the 2014-15 campaigns. He also boasts a gaudy 60.7 percent ground-ball rate in his Major League career, which undoubtedly appeals to the Diamondbacks, who play their home games in an extremely homer-friendly environment.
Presently, Andrew Chafin is the only left-hander that’s guaranteed a role in the Arizona bullpen. Looking further, the D-backs aren’t carrying an abundance of options in camp, with Steve Hathaway representing an optionable candidate for a second spot in the ‘pen. Non-roster options with whom McFarland will compete include veteran Jorge De La Rosa, Triple-A lefty Jared Miller and former teammate Brian Matusz.
Red Sox Renew Mookie Betts For $950K
The Red Sox have renewed outfielder Mookie Betts‘ contract at a healthy $950K price, according to Alex Speier of the Boston Globe (via Twitter). Betts, 24, has established himself as one of the game’s best players and is fresh off of an outstanding 2016 season in which he slashed .318/.363/.534 with 31 home runs and 26 stolen bases.
On the heels of that effort, Betts will take home the second-highest amount ever given to a 2+ service-class player who wasn’t eligible for arbitration, falling shy only of Mike Trout‘s 2014 payday of $1MM. Nevertheless, the Red Sox weren’t able to get him to sign his name to the agreement. The club had the right to renew him at whatever amount it preferred, so long as it met or exceeded the league minimum salary, so it’s not as if he had much leverage. But it’s still somewhat notable that Betts was the organization’s only player to make the symbolic gesture of forcing the club to renew him.
That being said, president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski says that he did not sense any bad feelings between the sides during negotiations, as Tim Britton of the Providence Journal reports (Twitter links). Certainly, the club could have taken a harsher stance in setting the final number, but obviously had no interest in making a point at the expense of its relationship with a key player. As things turned out, says Betts, there’s no animosity on his part. (Via Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald, on Twitter.)
It would not be surprising to see the sides back at the bargaining table sooner rather than later. If nothing else, there’ll be a hefty arbitration salary to negotiate next winter, but it’s also possible to imagine that the sides will explore a longer-term deal. While Boston enjoys three years of control over Betts beyond the upcoming season, the team’s leverage will wane as he gets closer to free agency and increases his earnings through the arb process.