Rays Sign Wilson Ramos
Catching help has been a priority for the Rays all offseason, and on Monday they announced the signing of veteran Wilson Ramos to a two-year deal contract that will reportedly guarantee the Octagon client $12.5MM (with a $4MM salary in 2017 and $8.5MM payday in 2018). Ramos will also have the opportunity to earn another $5.75MM worth of incentives, making for a total possibility of $18.25MM.
Perhaps the most notable incentive is an escalator provision that could allow Ramos to boost his 2018 salary by $2MM, as Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reports. He’d need to make 55 starts at catcher and not end up on the DL due to another knee injury to earn that boost. Additionally, for the 2017 season, Ramos can earn $250K apiece upon his 60th, 65th, 70th, and 75th games started behind the plate. He’ll get $125K at 300 and 325 plate appearances, and $250K a pop at 350, and every 25 plate appearances thereafter up to 500. Ramos can also bump up his 2018 earnings by $250K each upon his 450th, 475th, and 500th trip to the plate.
[Related: Updated Tampa Bay Rays Depth Chart]
The 29-year-old Ramos appeared set to land a massive free agent payday before suffering horrendously timed ACL and meniscus tears with less than a week to go in the regular season. The recovery from the surgery to repair those injuries will almost certainly carry on into the 2017 season. Ramos is now reportedly hopeful he can return to action in April or May, although it’s certainly possible that his absence could linger into the summer. (The Rays expect him to arrive in June or July, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times tweets.)
Before all that, Ramos hit .307/.354/.496 in 523 plate appearances in a breakout 2016 season with the Nationals. That performance won him his first Silver Slugger and All-Star berths, and catapulted him to a 3.5 fWAR season. He also has a reputation for solid, if unspectacular, defense behind the plate. StatCorner rates him as a slightly below-average pitch framer.
Whether he can produce anywhere near that well in 2017 or 2018 remains to be seen. As long as he can be healthy, though, he should be a significant upgrade for the Rays, who had Luke Maile and Curt Casali atop their depth chart at catcher. Given his injury, though, the Rays could also use Ramos at DH, particularly in 2017. The Nationals did not extend Ramos a qualifying offer, so the Rays will not have to sacrifice a draft pick as a result of the signing.
The relatively short duration of the deal will allow Ramos to hit the free agent market again at age 31, still a reasonable age for a catcher to land a significant contract. He will be able to rehab his knee injury without stress, while having enough time to reemerge as an elite catcher at some point during the course of the deal. Ramos declined a three-year, $30MM-plus extension offer from the Nationals in August, before his injury. (After the offseason began, the Nats quickly changed directions, dealing for Derek Norris to start for them at catcher.) Ramos’ current health issues and new contract are riskier for him, but if all goes well and he earns most or all of his incentives, he could conceivably make more than $30MM in the next three seasons anyway. Still, his $12.5MM guarantee seems modest for a player who would have been by far the best catcher available this offseason, had he been healthy.
Jorge Castillo of the Washington Post first reported that the two sides were meeting and that there was serious interest on Tampa Bay’s behalf (Twitter link). Joel Sherman of the New York Post first tweeted word of the agreement between the two sides. FanRag’s Jon Heyman tweeted the financial details.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Minor MLB Transactions: 12/11/16
The latest minor moves from around baseball:
- The Twins have brought back minor league catcher Dan Rohlfing, as he announced and Mike Berardino of the Pioneer Press confirmed (Twitter links). Rohlfing originally joined Minnesota in the 14th round of the 2007 draft and remained with the organization until it traded him to the Mets in April 2015. After a yearlong stint in the Mets’ system, he spent most of last season with the Diamondbacks’ Triple-A affiliate and slashed .289/.331/.474 with five home runs in 149 plate appearances. In all, the 27-year-old has batted .244/.316/.338 across 10 minor league seasons and 2,189 PAs.
Giants Sign Matt Reynolds To Minor League Deal
The Giants have signed left-handed reliever Matt Reynolds to a minor league contract with a non-roster invitation to spring training, according to ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick (Twitter links). San Francisco previously designated Reynolds for assignment in late September.
A few months after the Diamondbacks released Reynolds last March, the Giants purchased his contract from Lancaster of the independent Atlantic League in June. He ended up throwing a combined 24 2/3 innings at three levels with the San Francisco organization in 2016, though only six of those frames came in the majors. Reynolds yielded five earned runs on seven hits and five walks during that limited sample of work.
Before joining the Giants, Reynolds totaled 167 innings with the Rockies and D-backs from 2010-15 and pitched to a 3.66 ERA with 8.57 K/9 against 2.8 BB/9. Reynolds underwent Tommy John surgery in early 2014 and missed the entire season as a result. He has since tallied just 19 2/3 major league innings.
Angels Acquire Danny Espinosa
The Nationals have traded middle infielder Danny Espinosa to the Angels for minor league right-handers Austin Adams and Kyle McGowin, per an announcement from Washington.
[RELATED: Updated Nationals & Angels Depth Charts]
The Nats’ decision to move on from Espinosa came shortly after Jorge Castillo of the Washington Post reported the 29-year-old’s displeasure with the club’s acquisition of outfielder Adam Eaton. In trading a haul to the White Sox for Eaton, the Nationals picked up a player who should be their long-term answer in center field, thereby sending Trea Turner to shortstop. With Daniel Murphy entrenched at second base, Espinosa would have had to take on a bench role in 2017 had Washington kept him.
Now on his way out of D.C., Espinosa will head back to his native California and join an Angels team that, prior to Saturday, was in dire need of a second baseman to pair with shortstop Andrelton Simmons. Before settling on Espinosa, the Angels made recent inquiries to the Padres, Cardinals and Phillies about their second base options. Espinosa will also reunite with a former teammate in third baseman Yunel Escobar, whom the Nationals traded to the Angels exactly one year ago.
A lifetime .226/.302/.388 hitter in 2,972 plate appearances, Espinosa is fresh off a season in which he slashed .209/.306/.378 with a career-best 24 home runs in 601 PAs. The majority of the switch-hitting Espinosa’s offensive success has come versus left-handed pitchers, against whom he has posted a .257/.327/.454 career line in 736 trips to the plate. But he has provided most of his value via the field, having amassed 25 Defensive Runs Saved and an Ultimate Zone Rating of 27.0 in 4,400-plus innings as a second baseman. With Espinosa and Simmons, one of the majors’ foremost defenders, the Angels should have an enviable double-play combination for at least next season. Espinosa will make an estimated $5.3MM through arbitration in 2017, his final year under team control.
Of the two pitchers the Halos sent to the Nationals, McGowin is the more notable. The 25-year-old ranked as the Angels’ 20th-best prospect, per MLBpipeline.com, which credits the 2013 fifth-round pick for his three-pitch mix and suggests that he has back-end starter upside. The 25-year-old hasn’t generated great results during his minor league career, though, and just finished a season in which he recorded a 6.11 ERA, 7.58 K/9 and 3.58 BB/9 over 116 1/3 innings in his first taste of Triple-A action.
Adams, also 25 (and not to be confused with the Indians righty), was impressive in relief for the Angels’ Double-A affiliate in Arkansas in 2016. Although he issued too many walks (5.28 per nine), the 2012 eighth-round pick offset that somewhat with a sky-high K/9 (13.28). All told, he registered a 3.05 ERA across 41 1/3 frames. In assessing Adams in 2015, former FanGraphs prospect analyst Kiley McDaniel complimented his above-average fastball and plus slider, though he also noted Adams’ lack of control.
Josh Norris of Baseball America was the first to report the trade and the two-prospect return (Twitter links). Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Minor MLB Transactions: 12/9/16
Here are the day’s minor moves:
- The Astros added infielder Reid Brignac on a minor-league deal, Jake Kaplan of the Houston Chronicle reports on Twitter. His contract includes a spring invite. Brignac, 30, has bounced around quite a bit since his days as a frequent contributor to the Rays earlier in his career, appearing most recently with the Braves. The former top prospect has appeared in each of the last nine major league seasons, but hasn’t cracked 100 plate appearances in a single year since 2011. All told, Brignac owns a .219/.264/.309 batting line over 951 trips to the plate in the majors.
Earlier Moves
- Southpaw Sean Burnett will head to camp with the Phillies, according to SB Nation’s Chris Cotillo (via Twitter). If he can crack the roster, Burnett will receive a $1.25MM salary if and when he pitches in the majors, per Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet.ca (Twitter links). The deal also includes $1.75MM in available incentives along with a March 26 opt-out date, per Nicholson-Smith. Burnett, 34, returned to the majors in 2016 with the Nationals after missing time due to injury. He posted a 3.18 ERA with three strikeouts and a walk over 5 2/3 innings across ten appearances in his return to D.C., and figures to have a shot at earning a lefty specialist role in Philadelphia.
- The Braves have a minor-league deal in place to bring back infielder Emilio Bonifacio, Cotillo tweets. Now 31, Bonifacio has played in the majors in ten consecutive seasons. But his opportunities have dwindled of late, and he spent most of 2016 at Triple-A. In his 471 plate appearances at Gwinnett, Bonifacio slashed a solid .298/.356/.369. He could conceivably challenge for a utility role next spring.
- Outfielder Junior Lake will join the Red Sox on a minor-league pact, per Cotillo (via Twitter). The 26-year-old, a right-handed hitter, cracked the majors briefly this past season with the Blue Jays and has appeared in each of the past four MLB campaigns. But Lake has seen only 51 games of action since playing an active reserve role for the Cubs in 2013-14. He hit .231/.314/.352 over 318 plate appearances last year at Triple-A.
- Righty Logan Bawcom is headed to the Padres on a minor-league deal, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports tweets. Bawcom has yet to crack the big leagues, but showed well in the upper minors last year in the Dodgers organization. Spending most of his time at Triple-A, the 28-year-old posted 98 innings of 1.93 ERA ball over a dozen starts and 24 relief appearances, with 7.3 K/9 and 3.0 BB/9.
- The Mariners outrighted lefty Dean Kiekhefer, the club announced. He had recently been designated for assignment. A 22-inning MLB debut in 2016 didn’t go very well, as Kiekhefer pitched to a 5.32 ERA for the Cardinals, but he has posted sub-3.00 earned run averages in each of the past three seasons in the upper minors.
- Catcher Johnny Monell is heading to Korea, but it’s the KT Wiz and not the NC Dinos who’ll sign him. Cotillo had reported a connection to the Changwon-based Dinos yesterday, but says that the destination changed after that arrangement fell through. (Twitter link.)
Reds Announce Minor-League Signings, Non-Roster Invitations
The Reds have announced 18 non-roster invitations to MLB camp this spring, as C. Trent Rosecrans of the Cincinnati Enquirer reports. That includes a variety of internal players as well as a few outside additions: southpaw Lucas Luetge along with catchers Rob Brantly and Shawn Zarraga.
Luetge, 29, spent 2016 at Triple-A for the Angels after spending parts of four seasons in the majors with the Mariners. He ended the campaign with 55 2/3 innings of 4.85 ERA pitching. Though he managed a healthy 9.4 K/9, Luetge continued to issue a few too many free passes (4.7 BB/9).
The 27-year-old Brantly has seen action in three major league seasons, hitting .225/.286/.317 over 392 plate appearances. At Triple-A with the Mariners last year, he slashed .244/.268/.432 over 315 trips to the plate. He also chipped in a personal-best 14 long balls.
Zarraga, also 27, will also join the group of backstops hoping to establish a place in the pecking order. He reached base at a useful .384 clip in 99 Double-A plate appearances with the Dodgers in 2016, but struggled with the bat in limited action at the highest level of the minors. Zarraga is still looking for his first crack at the majors.
Other players receiving big league invites include, on the position-player side, catcher Chad Wallach, infielders Brandon Dixon, Tony Renda (who was recently outrighted), and Zach Vincej, utilitymen Hernan Iribarren (who will stay with Cincinnati after also being outrighted) and Patrick Kivlehan (claimed and then outrighted in October), as well as outfielders Sebastian Elizalde and Gabriel Guerrero (who was claimed, non-tendered, and then re-signed to a minors deal). Among pitchers, lefties Ismael Guillon and Nick Routt are joined by righties Alejandro Chacin, Jimmy Herget, Tyler Mahle, Evan Mitchell, Kevin Shackelford, and — perhaps most intriguingly — just-signed Cuban hurler Vladimir Gutierrez.
Phillies To Sign Daniel Nava
The Phillies have agreed to a minor-league deal with outfielder Daniel Nava, Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer reports on Twitter. Nava, 33, spent last year with the Angels and (briefly) the Royals.
It has been some time since Nava was a productive major leaguer. He put up a roughly league-average batting line in 2014 with the Red Sox, one year after his breakout 2013 campaign, but owns a modest .208/.307/.268 slash in his 314 plate appearances since that time. Nava is a switch-hitter who is historically much better against right-handed pitching.
While the rebuilding Phillies have added one likely corner outfield piece in Howie Kendrick, and continue to feature Odubel Herrera up the middle, there’s still ample uncertainty in the outfield. Nava will likely join the hunt for work in a platoon or true bench role along with a number of other players — including both prospects and other veterans brought in from outside the organization.
As things stand, younger corner outfield possibilities include right-handed hitters Aaron Altherr and Tyler Goeddel as well as the switch-hitting Roman Quinn. There are a few southpaw-swinging outfield candidates, too, including highly regarded prospects Nick Williams and Dylan Cozens, but it’s not clear whether they’ll be deemed ready for a major role out of the gates.
Dodgers Outright Charlie Culberson
The Dodgers have outrighted utilityman Charlie Culberson, as J.P. Hoornstra of the Los Angeles News Group tweets. With the move, Los Angeles has one opening on its 40-man roster.
Culberson, 27, saw only 68 plate appearances last year with the Dodgers, hitting .299/.309/.388 with a single home run. But he made that dinger count: it was the blow that secured the NL West crown for the team. Culberson is capable of playing all over the diamond, and that versatility earned him a spot on the Dodgers’ NLDS roster in 2016.
Los Angeles had recently agreed to a $550K deal with Culberson, as Jon Heyman of Fan Rag tweeted. He would be entitled to reject the outright assignment, having previously been outrighted by the Rockies, though that would mean sacrificing the guarantee. Presumably, this turn of events was largely foreseen by both player and team at the time that the new contract was agreed to.
Phil Bickford Receives 50-Game Suspension For Drug Of Abuse
Brewers righty Phil Bickford has been hit with a 50-game suspension after testing positive for a drug of abuse for the second time, as Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times tweets. Bickford reportedly tested positive for marijuana before being drafted in 2015. Players on 40-man rosters are not at risk of suspension for marijuana use, but Bickford is not on Milwaukee’s big-league roster.
Bickford, 21, has long been seen as a high-quality pitching prospect. He has maintained double-digit strikeout-per-nine tallies throughout his minor league career since heading to the Giants with the 18th overall selection. (Bickford was also previously taken tenth overall by the Blue Jays in 2013, but did not sign at the time.)
The suspension won’t have an impact on Milwaukee’s immediate plans, as Bickford has yet to reach the upper minors. But it will have at least some impact on his developmental timeline, which certainly rates as a disappointment for the organization. The Brewers added Bickford from the Giants along with catcher Andrew Susac in the trade that sent lefty Will Smith to San Francisco at the trade deadline.
Bickford delivers a big four-seam fastball, diving two-seamer, promising slider, and developing change, MLB.com’s prospect team explained in ranking him the fifth-best talent on the Brewers farm. There are still some who think he’ll end up in a major league pen, but regardless the expectation remains that he’ll make an impact. Last year, working at the Class A and High-A level, Bickford threw 120 innings of 2.92 ERA ball with 10.1 K/9 against 3.2 BB/9.
Diamondbacks Sign Fernando Rodney
DECEMBER 9: Arizona appears to have acknowledged the signing via Twitter, with a clever nod to Rodney’s post-save, arrow-shooting celebration.
Jack Magruder of Fan Rag tweeted the details of the incentives clause, which he says maxes out at $4MM. That includes $250K apiece if and when Rodney reaches 40, 50, and 60 appearances, with a $500K payout if he gets to 70.
DEC. 7: SB Nation’s Chris Cotillo tweets that Rodney’s deal would max out at $5MM if all of the incentives are reached.
DEC. 6: The Diamondbacks have agreed to a one-year deal with free agent reliever Fernando Rodney, Jon Heyman of FanRag writes (Twitter links). Rodney will receive $2.75MM guaranteed, plus considerable incentives, and he’ll open the year as the Diamondbacks’ closer. Heyman had previously tweeted that the Diamondbacks and Padres were in talks with Rodney, who is an Octagon client.
It was a tale of two seasons for the Rodney in 2016 — he was brilliant for the Padres to start the year, allowing just one earned run through 28 1/3 innings in San Diego, but then he allowed twice as many walks in 36 2/3 innings after a trade to Miami. His 5.89 ERA, 10.1 K/9 and 6.1 BB/9 in Florida led the Marlins to decline his 2017 option, which was effectively worth $4.5MM after incentives.
Where that leaves Rodney for 2017 is unclear — on one hand, he has closing experience, can still strike batters out and induce grounders, and managed to post a reasonable composite line in 2016 (3.44 ERA, 10.2 K/9, 5.1 BB/9). On the other hand, he faded down the stretch, walks too many batters, and will be 40 in March.
In any case, the Diamondbacks didn’t have an established closer, so the deal provides both player and team with an opportunity. Rodney can reestablish himself as a big-league closer. The Diamondbacks, who don’t appear likely to contend, can either keep him for the year or attempt to trade him, much as the Padres did last season — San Diego received a decent starting pitching prospect, Chris Paddack, when it dealt Rodney last June.