Minor MLB Transactions: 1/5/17
Here are the day’s minor moves:
- First baseman/outfielder Ji-Man Choi has been outrighted to Triple-A by the Angels after clearing waivers, the team announced. He had been designated for assignment recently. Choi, 25, hit a robust .346/.434/.527 over 227 plate appearances at the highest level of the minors and earned his first trip to the majors in 2016. He put up a meager .170/.271/.339 slash there, however, over his 129 trips to the plate. The left-handed hitter could still compete for a bench spot in camp, particularly if Albert Pujols is slow to return from his offseason surgery.
- The Rangers have added catcher Steven Lerud on a minor-league deal, per a club announcement. He’ll receive an invitation to MLB camp this spring. Lerud, 32, saw very brief MLB action in both 2012 and 2013, but has plied his trade in the upper minors almost exclusively since 2009. Last year, playing in the Giants organization, he hit .229/.385/.288 over his 214 plate appearances, drawing 38 walks against 50 strikeouts but launching just one home run.
Phillies, Cesar Ramos Agree To Minors Deal
The Phillies have agreed to terms on a minor league contract with left-hander Cesar Ramos, reports SB Nation’s Chris Cotillo (on Twitter). The Wasserman client will add a southpaw with considerable Major League experience to Philadelphia’s depth chart.
Ramos, 32, opened the 2016 season with the Rangers and made four starts plus a dozen relief appearances before being released in late July. The 6.04 ERA, 11.3 H/9 and 2.3 HR/9 yielded by Ramos in his brief 47 2/3 inning stint with Texas weren’t pretty, but prior to that he’d enjoyed a nice run as a bullpen lefty with the Rays and Angels. From 2011-15, Ramos tossed 276 innings of 3.49 ERA ball, averaging 7.2 strikeouts and 3.6 walks per nine innings pitched. His ground-ball rate has fluctuated a bit over the years, but his career average is a solid 45.5 percent. Ramos has also held lefties in check reasonably well, limiting same-handed opponents to a .250/.314/.339 batting line.
The Phillies don’t have much certainty among left-handed relievers. Hard-throwing Joely Rodriguez is currently the only lefty projected in their big league bullpen, though starter Adam Morgan could also get a look due to the fact that the rotation looks to be full without him. The Phils have also added southpaw Sean Burnett as a non-roster invite this offseason, so he’ll be among the arms with which Ramos is competing for a roster spot this spring.
Blue Jays Sign Gavin Floyd To Minor League Deal
The Blue Jays announced that they’ve re-signed right-hander Gavin Floyd to a minor league contract and invited him to Major League Spring Training.
Floyd, 34 later this month, spent the 2016 campaign with the Jays and pitched reasonably well when healthy, logging a 4.06 earned run average with a 30-to-8 K/BB ratio in 31 innings out of the Toronto bullpen. His season, however, came to an end in late June when he hit the disabled list with a shoulder injury that later proved to be a partially torn lat muscle.
Floyd has been plagued by persistent arm issues since undergoing Tommy John surgery in May 2013, twice fracturing the olecranon bone in his elbow in addition to his 2016 shoulder woes, but he’s steadfastly remained committed to getting back on a big league mound. He’s posted a 3.10 ERA in 98 2/3 innings since undergoing Tommy John, so the talent is clearly still there. The question with Floyd is simply one of whether his arm can hold up for the duration of a Major League season, even working in short relief stints. Certainly, it would seem that Toronto president Mark Shapiro and GM Ross Atkins are firm believers in Floyd’s abilities, as they’ve been a part of signing him in each of the past three offseasons (with Cleveland prior to the 2015 season and with the Jays last winter).
Indians Designate Left-Hander Edwin Escobar For Assignment
The Indians announced that left-handed pitcher Edwin Escobar has been designated for assignment in order to clear a spot on the 40-man roster for first baseman/designated hitter Edwin Encarnacion, whose three-year contract with Cleveland is now official.
Cleveland originally picked up the 24-year-old Escobar off waivers from the Diamondbacks in November, so his time with the organization could come to an end before he so much as throws a pitch. Escobar tossed 23 2/3 innings of relief for Arizona this past season and yielded a 7.23 ERA (19 earned runs) with a 17-to-12 K/BB ratio in that time (three of the walks were intentional). He’s pitched better in Triple-A but still comes with a modest track record, having compiled a 4.63 ERA with 6.5 K/9 against 3.4 BB/9 in 286 innings at that level.
Escobar won’t turn 25 until late April, so he’s still relatively young, and he’s traditionally held lefties in check quite well. In 2016, same-handed batters hit .266/.329/.329 against him between the Majors and Triple-A, and in three of the four prior seasons, he held lefties to a sub-.600 OPS. As a former Top 100 prospect and a player with baseball in his bloodlines — Escobar is the cousin of Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar, Angels righty Vicente Campos and retired right-hander Kelvim Escobar — Escobar could find himself claimed by a rival club looking to add some left-handed depth to its ranks.
Jimmy Paredes Signs With Japan’s Chiba Lotte Marines
The Chiba Lotte Marines of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball have announced the signing of infielder/outfielder Jimmy Paredes to a one-year deal. He’ll earn $1.2MM, according to the Japan Times. The Marines also announced the re-signing of former MLB right-hander Jason Standridge to a one-year deal — also worth $1.2MM, per the Times.
Paredes, who turned 28 in November, has spent parts of each of the past five seasons at the Major League level. Most recently, he appeared in 76 games for the 2016 Phillies but struggled at the plate, hitting .217/.242/.350 with four homers in 150 trips to the plate. He’s also spent time with the Astros, Orioles, Royals and Blue Jays, posting a collective .251/.286/.369 batting line in 1012 plate appearances along the way. A switch-hitter, Paredes has traditionally fared better as a left-handed batter, hitting righties at a .266/.299/.401 clip (compared to .197/.241/.247 from his weaker side).
Paredes has shown flashes of potential at the Major League level, including an .807 OPS and 10 homers in 68 first-half games with the Orioles in 2015. However, his position on the diamond has long been a question mark. Though Paredes has experience at second base, third base and in both outfield corners, his glovework rates as below average at each position. He’s listed as an infielder on the Marines’ official web site, so it seems fair to expect Paredes to spend most of his time at either second or third base in his first taste of Japanese baseball.
As for the 38-year-old Standridge, his name is likely familiar to many MLBTR readers, though it’s been a decade since he’s pitched in the Majors. The Rays selected Standridge with the 31st overall pick back in 1997, but he struggled to a 5.80 ERA across 80 games and 127 1/3 innings as a big leaguer from 2001-07. However, Standridge found great success pitching overseas and is signing on for his eighth professional season in Japan with this new deal. The Birmingham, Ala. native has spent four seasons with the Hanshin Tigers, two with the Fukuok Softbank Hawks and will now return for his second season with the Marines. In 1059 2/3 innings as a starter in NPB, Standridge has a career 3.21 ERA with 6.3 K/9 against 2.7 BB/9.
Minor MLB Transactions: 1/4/17
Some minor signings from around the game as Wednesday night winds down…
- The Twins signed veteran right-hander Jim Miller to a minor league deal, per Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press (Twitter link). The 34-year-old was a solid member of the Athletics’ bullpen back in 2012 (2.59 ERA in 48 2/3 innings) but has seen scarce MLB action since — most recently with the Yankees in 2014. Miller has a 3.48 ERA in 67 2/3 innings as a Major Leaguer and figures to head to Triple-A as a depth option for the Twins following a very strong showing in the independent Atlantic League last year. Miller fired 25 shutout innings and posted a 24-to-2 K/BB ratio for the Somerset Patriots.
- The Twins also added another player from the indy circuit, purchasing the contract of outfielder Leandro Castro from the Can-Am League’s Rockland Boulders, as the Boulders announced yesterday. The 27-year-old Castro, a former Phillies farmhand, saw his career sputter at the Triple-A level in 2013-14 but has turned in a consecutive pair of excellent seasons in independent ball. Castro hit .322/.364/.530 with 13 homers and 21 steals for the New Jersey Jackals of the Can-Am League in 2015 and batted a combined .316/.355/.524 between the American Association’s Laredo Lemurs and the aforementioned Boulders this past season. Though he never generated all that much prospect fanfare, Castro did rank in the back third of the Phillies’ top 30 prospects from 2009-11, per Baseball America. BA rated him 24th in the Phillies system prior to the 2012 season and pegged him as a fourth outfielder with solid-average speed but not enough bat to profile in a corner slot.
- FOX’s Ken Rosenthal tweets that right-hander Jaye Chapman has inked a minors pact with the Rangers. While he won’t get an invite to Major League Spring Training, Chapman will function as a Triple-A depth piece for a deep Texas bullpen. Chapman hasn’t pitched in the Majors since 2012 in large part due to a rare genetic condition — femoroacetabular impingement in both hips — that caused considerable damage to the tissue surrounding the head of his thigh bones (as MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy chronicled back in 2014). Chapman told McCalvy then that doctors who examined his hips said “it was like somebody had taken a razor blade to my labrums,” adding that if untreated, the condition could’ve resulted in hip replacements before his 30th birthday. Chapman has a career 4.21 ERA with 9.7 K/9 against 4.3 BB/9 in parts of five Triple-A seasons and will turn 30 next May.
Athletics Sign Rajai Davis
8:52pm: ESPN’s Buster Olney provides further detail on Davis’ incentives (Twitter link). He’ll earn $100K for reaching 500 plate appearances, $150K for reaching 550 plate appearances and $200K for reaching 600 plate appearances.
8:40pm: After spending much of the offseason looking for a center fielder, the A’s announced on Tuesday that they’ve signed free-agent outfielder Rajai Davis to a one-year deal that will reportedly guarantee him $6MM. The 36-year-old Legacy Agency client is also said to be able to earn up to $450K worth of performance bonuses in the new contract, which will bring him back to Oakland for a second stint with the A’s. Davis previously played in Oakland from 2008-10.
[Related: Updated Oakland Athletics Depth Chart and Athletics Payroll Information]
Davis will give president of baseball operations Billy Beane and manager Bob Melvin a much-needed option in center field, although he could also shift over to left field in the event that Oakland adds an additional center-field-capable outfielder. He’ll join an outfield mix that currently includes Khris Davis, Matt Joyce, Brett Eibner and Jake Smolinski. Presumably, Davis will be in line for regular work in the outfield, with Khris Davis and Joyce regularly finding their names penciled into the lineup (though Khris may see frequent time at designated hitter, depending on how the rest of Oakland’s offseason shakes out).
With this new deal, Davis will receive a slight raise from last year’s $5.25MM salary with the Indians, and he’s a good bet to make good on that modest investment based on his glovework and baserunning alone. Davis posted a fairly lackluster .249/.306/.388 batting line in 2016, though he did tally the second-most plate appearances of his career and belt a career-best 12 homers (not including his dramatic home run against Aroldis Chapman in Game 7 of the World Series, which cemented Davis in Cleveland sports lore and will forever live on as an iconic Indians moment).
Davis’ batting line was still decidedly worse than the league average, but he managed to add value in the outfield (depending on your preferred defensive metric) and was among baseball’s best baserunners. Per Fangraphs, the only player in baseball who provided more value on the bases than Davis was Cincinnati’s Billy Hamilton. Indeed, Davis swiped an AL-best 43 bases and also proved adept at taking extra bases in first-to-third situations, second-to-home situations and other baserunning scenarios.
Strong baserunning has been a hallmark of Davis’ career, as he’s averaged 39 steals per season and 52 per 162 games played since cementing himself as a semi-regular player with the 2009 A’s. While he isn’t a force at the plate, Davis does have a very strong track record against opposite-handed pitching, as he’s hit lefties at a .288/.343/.437 clip over parts of 11 Major League seasons.
MLBTR’s Jeff Todd recently ran down the Athletics’ top three remaining needs of the offseason, and adding a center fielder was tops among those yet-unresolved priorities. From a payroll vantage point, Davis will send Oakland’s projected total to about $70.3MM, as MLBTR’s Jason Martinez outlines in the above-linked Roster Resource payroll projection. Oakland was reportedly willing to offer a two-year, $50MM pact to Edwin Encarnacion and is still about $16MM shy of their payroll from Opening Day 2016 even after adding Davis to the fold, so the team should have the spending capacity to add help at first base and/or in the rotation — both of which were also on Jeff’s list of remaining needs for Beane and GM David Forst.
Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports first reported the agreement and the terms (via Twitter). Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle added details about Davis’ potential incentives (Twitter link).
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Athletics Designate Max Muncy For Assignment
The A’s announced tonight that infielder/outfielder Max Muncy has been designated for assignment in order to clear a spot on the 40-man roster for outfielder Rajai Davis, whose one-year contract with Oakland has now officially been announced.
The 26-year-old Muncy has been up and down between Triple-A and the Majors with the A’s over the past two seasons, spending time at first base, second base, third base and in the outfield corners at the Major League level. That versatility aside, however, he’s managed just a .195/.290/.321 batting line and five homers over the life of 96 games (245 plate appearances) in green and gold. He has a solid, albeit unspectacular track record in the minors, including a .262/.355/.407 slash in more than 500 plate appearances with the Athletics’ Triple-A affiliate. A former fifth-round pick, Muncy has worked primarily as a first baseman throughout his minor league tenure.
Royals Acquire Peter O’Brien From Diamondbacks
The Diamondbacks announced on Tuesday that they’ve traded outfielder Peter O’Brien, who had recently been designated for assignment, to the Royals in exchange for minor league right-hander Sam Lewis.
The 26-yer-old O’Brien has drawn his fair share of attention over the years due to his gaudy power numbers in Triple-A. In 968 plate appearances at that level — split between the Yankees and Diamondbacks — O’Brien has compiled a career .270/.315/.530 batting line. Originally acquired by the D-backs in the 2014 trade that sent Martin Prado to the Yankees, O’Brien has slugged a total of 50 home runs in parts of two seasons in Triple-A.
While O’Brien began his career as a catcher, few scouts gave him much of a chance to stay behind the plate due to defensive concerns. Many scouting reports have suggested that O’Brien lacks any real position on the defensive spectrum, and he’s struggled in his brief taste of the Major Leagues to date (.176/.228/.446 with six homers but 32 strikeouts in 79 plate appearances). Still, he’ll give the Royals a potential power bat with multiple years of club control remaining. Unlike the D-backs, the Royals can simply elect to play O’Brien at DH in the event that he does eventually see his big league production more closely mirror the work he’s put in at the Triple-A level.
Lewis, meanwhile, turned 25 this offseason and returned from a 2015 injury to log 44 1/3 innings of 1.62 ERA ball across three minor league levels. However, impressive as that number seems, it should be noted that he topped out at Class-A Advanced, so he was working against considerably younger and less experienced competition. Lewis averaged 7.9 K/9 against 1.4 BB/9 in his 2016 campaign while also posting a 47.5 percent ground-ball rate, per MLBfarm.com. Their notes on Lewis have his fastball in the upper 80s to low 90s. Lewis only totaled nine innings at High-A last season, and that was his first exposure to the level, so he could return there to open the 2017 season or be pushed to Double-A if the D-backs take a bit more aggressive approach. He’s made just nine minor league starts, so he’s likely viewed strictly as a reliever by his new organization.
Diamondbacks, Rubby De La Rosa Agree To Minor League Deal
The Diamondbacks have agreed to re-sign right-hander Rubby De La Rosa to a minor league contract, reports Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic. De La Rosa will earn $750K upon making the big league roster and also can earn an additional $3.5MM via incentives, Piecoro reports. Though De La Rosa has worked as a starter in previous seasons with the D-backs, Arizona will move him to a relief role in an attempt to keep him healthier after he missed the bulk of the 2016 season battling elbow issues, Piecoro adds.
De La Rosa had Tommy John surgery as a prospect, but there was some fear in 2016 that he’d require a second TJ operation due to the aforementioned elbow troubles. As a means of avoiding that fate, the 27-year-old underwent stem cell therapy in September. Piecoro notes that there are still no guarantees on De La Rosa’s health, which will remain somewhat of a mystery until he’s able to face live hitters and throw off a mound during Spring Training.
Many scouts have tabbed De La Rosa as a reliever, as we’ve noted here at MLBTR over the years. De La Rosa typically shows good velocity, averaging between 94 and 95 mph as a starter, but he lacks a quality third offering and has long struggled against left-handed batters (career .286/.363/.489 batting line allowed). A shift to the bullpen will conceivably allow De La Rosa’s velocity to play up even further and can help to limit the number of lefties he faces (while also potentially making him more effective versus lefties by way of increased velocity).
If De La Rosa does make the roster and perform well over the life of a full big league season in his new role, he’d remain controllable for the Diamondbacks for one more winter. De La Rosa was non-tendered by the D-backs a month ago due to the fact that the team didn’t want to risk a projected $3MM salary for him, and he has just four years, 97 days of big league service, so he’ll remain arbitration-eligible next winter.