Cubs Sign Slate Of International Prospects To Large Bonuses
The Cubs have made a splash early in the international market by locking up a lengthy list of players to significant bonuses. MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez first reported the bulk of the signings.
Among the players inked, the biggest bonus goes to Yonathan Sierra Estiwal, an outfielder from the Dominican Republic, who’ll get $2.5MM. He earned the 16th slot on the MLB.com board, which noted that there could be some power in his long frame, while Kiley McDaniel of Fangraphs and Baseball America’s Ben Badler ranked him outside the top thirty available players.
Another $2MM will go to countryman Aramis Ademan, a shortstop, whose signing was first reported by Ben Badler of Baseball America with Sanchez adding the cash value. Badler placed him within his top dozen players, explaining that he offers more in the way of solid promise than huge upside. A contact hitter with minimal power and uninspiring speed, Ademan shows promise as an on-base threat and is a smooth, competent fielder at short with solid arm strength.
Also checking in with seven-figure bonuses were Venezuelan shortstop Yonathan Perlaza ($1.3MM), Panamanian catcher Miguel Amaya ($1.25MM), and Dominican corner infielder Christopher Martinez ($1MM). All of those players earned top-thirty billing in at least one of the above-linked rankings. Sanchez adds that righty Yunior Perez is also going to Chicago for $600K.
Tally up those deals, and the total outlay stands at $7.65MM. That’s more than double the club’s $3,230,700 total pool allocation (via Baseball America), meaning that the Cubs will sacrifice the ability to hand out any $300K+ bonuses for the next two years and incur a 100% tax on its overage. The club could still trade for some additional spending slots to offset some of those penalty fees.
Twins To Sign Wander Javier
The Twins have agreed to a deal with Dominican shortstop Wander Javier, Ben Badler of Baseball America reports. Javier rated as the No. 9 prospect in this year’s international class, per Badler. Kiley McDaniel of Fangraphs ranked him fifth, and MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez ranked him eighth.
Javier will earn a $4MM bonus, MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez reports on Twitter, matching the figure reported by McDaniel dating back to early Spring. Sanchez’s scouting report indicates that Javier has plus raw power and a plus throwing arm with a chance to stick at shortstop, though there’s also a possibility that his 6’0″, 165-pound frame could grow to the point where he’ll have to move to third. McDaniel writes that he ran a 7.01 in the 60-yard dash in February (50-grade) and could pick up a step or two as he matures. He has a raw hitting approach writes Badler (subscription required), and while his swing can get long and flatten out, some scouts project above-average power down the line. Badler notes that tools like Javier’s are tough to come by in the draft, causing multiple teams to be drawn to his ceiling.
Rangers To Sign Leodys Taveras
The Rangers have reached a deal with highly-regarded Dominican outfielder Leodys Taveras, Ben Badler of Baseball America reports. He is the cousin of former big leaguer Willy Taveras.
BA had the highest grade on Taveras among international prospect evaluators, ranking him third overall on the basis of his strong overall skillset. Indeed, Badler writes that the youngster could ultimately possess five average or better tools when all is said and done. He is a switch hitter with a nice stroke and good strength given his frame. While he’ll need to work to improve his instincts to stick in center, says Badler, he has the speed and arm strength to develop into a good defender.
Kiley McDaniel of Fangraphs largely concurred with that assessment, placing Taveras seventh on his board. MLB.com took a somewhat dimmer view, rating him 18th, due to the fact that Taveras could use some polishing at the plate.
Taveras will earn a $2.1MM bonus, Badler tweets. That is a good deal less than the $3MM expected for Taveras, according to Kiley McDaniel of Fangraphs, and could leave some additional space for the Rangers, who have just over $4.5MM in total pool allocation.
The club is also said to have signed Venezuelan outfielder Miguel Aparicio, also per a Badler report. He’ll receive a $500K bonus. Badler rates him the 13th-best player available, citing his all-around tools.
Dodgers To Sign Yadier Alvarez, Other Top International Prospects
The Dodgers have indeed agreed upon a $16MM bonus with Cuban right-hander Yadier Alvarez, MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez reports (links to Twitter). That is expected to be the single largest payout given a single player on this year’s international market and is the second-largest bonus ever given to an international amateur, trailing only Yoan Moncada‘s $31.5MM bonus with the Red Sox. Alvarez is represented by Beverly Hills Sports Council and Rick Thurman, Rafael Nieves and Nelson Montes.
Alvarez popped onto the scene earlier this year with a big fastball and exciting slider. He has drawn some mixed reviews, but obviously the Dodgers are believers. The opportunity to sign Alvarez, among other players, was cited as a primary reason that the organization declined to top the Red Sox’ offer for Yoan Moncada this spring.
In the eyes of Kiley McDaniel of Fangraphs, Alvarez was the best player available on the basis of his mid-to-upper nineties heater, plus slider, and promising change. He also possesses good athleticism and good overall physical tools, leading McDaniel to believe that he has a good chance of harnessing his stuff. Ben Badler of Baseball America expresses more concern with Alvarez’s lack of a track record and current tendency toward being wild, explaining that there is plenty of risk to go with the obvious upside.
Los Angeles has also agreed with outfielder Starling Heredia on a $2.6MM bonus and with infielder Ronny Brito on a $2MM bonus, per Sanchez. Those players, both hailing from the Dominican Republic, also rated amongst the thirty best international prospects available according to most analysts. MLB.com placed Heredia fifth on its list, citing his “raw power and projectable body.” McDaniel had Brito in the 15th place on his board, noting that he has the upside to develop into a prospect on the order of J.P. Crawford if he can pair a useful bat with good speed and fielding ability.
With just these three signings alone, Los Angeles will easily land well over its fairly meager international spending allocation of $2,020,300. Every dollar spent above that mark will be taxed at a 100% rate, meaning the Dodgers are already nearing $40MM in total obligations.
Orioles Designate Delmon Young For Assignment, Will Seek Trade Partner
5:44pm: Kubatko says that GM Dan Duquette sounded confident that he’ll be able to trade Young, though a deal won’t be completed today (Twitter link).
5:20pm: The Orioles announced (Twitter link) that they have designated outfielder Delmon Young for assignment. A little more than an hour ago, manager Buck Showalter indicated to reporters that a move was coming soon in order to clear a spot on the roster for right-hander Tyler Wilson. MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko tweets that the O’s will try to trade Young, and GM Dan Duquette has spoken to execs in both the AL and the NL about him.
The 29-year-old Young is in the midst of his second season with the Orioles after signing a one-year, $2.25MM contract this offseason to return to Baltimore. However, after enjoying a nice run as a part-time player with the Orioles in 2014 when he batted .302/.337/.442 in 255 plate appearances, Young has struggled to a .270/.289/.339 batting line in 2015. Though he has a strong throwing arm, Young’s range is limited in the corner outfield spots. He is still owed $1.19MM through season’s end and would earn $125K bonuses for reaching 250 and 300 plate appearances, with another $100K kicking in for every 50 PAs beyond that point — up to 600 PAs.
Dan Connolly of the Baltimore Sun reported earlier today that the Orioles have been exploring trade possibilities for Young, and he again tweets that one NL club has shown some definite interest in Young. It’s not known at this time which team is showing the most interest, but from a speculative standpoint, I’d think that both the Giants and Pirates make some sense. San Francisco recently lost both Hunter Pence and Nori Aoki to the disabled list, and over in Pittsburgh, Gregory Polanco has looked overmatched by left-handed pitching all season. Young, for all of his flaws, is a weapon against lefties; he’s batted .302/.337/.461 in his career when holding the platoon advantage.
Twins To Promote Miguel Sano
The Twins will promote top prospect Miguel Sano prior to tomorrow’s contest, an industry source tells MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger (Twitter link). It would seem, then, that Sano will be recalled to replace DH Kennys Vargas, who was optioned to Double-A Chattanooga earlier today.
Sano, 22, is considered the best right-handed power prospect in the game and draw scouting grades for his raw power that are parallel to those of Joey Gallo. He entered the season ranked as the game’s No. 11 prospect by MLB.com and placed 12th and 13th on the respective lists of Baseball Prospectus and Baseball America. Fangraphs ranked the Dominican third baseman 15th among all prospects, as did ESPN’s Keith Law. Baseball America’s Ben Badler tweets that in eight seasons covering the July 2 international prospect market, Sano is, to this day, the best position-player prospect that he’s covered.
As mentioned, Sano’s calling card is what most scouts rank as 80-grade power (on the 20-80 scale). MLB.com’s scouting report notes that Sano has “as much power as anyone in the minor leagues,” adding that his 2013 output of 35 homers between Class-A and Double-A could become an annual occurrence. Defensively speaking, Sano was signed as a shortstop but quickly outgrew the position and moved to third base, where the 6’4″, 260-pounder is said by most to be below average.
Third base is presently occupied by Trevor Plouffe for the Twins, and while Plouffe isn’t necessarily a star-level player, he’s quietly developed into a solid regular at the position. It seems possible, especially since he’s taking Vargas’ spot on the roster, that Sano will cut his teeth in the Majors primarily as a designated hitter, though he could certainly spell Plouffe at the hot corner on occasion.
Sano missed the entire 2014 season due to Tommy John surgery and opened the 2015 campaign at Double-A for a second stint as he reacclimated himself to the rigors of playing every day. He started the season slow, but since the beginning of May, Sano has been an absolute juggernaut for the Lookouts. In that time, he’s batted .315/.400/.601 with 11 homers in 210 plate appearances.
If Sano is to stick in the Majors from this point forth, he’ll accrue 97 days of big league service, leaving him well shy of Super Two designation. As such, he’d be arbitration-eligible the standard three times before qualifying for free agency following the 2021 season.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Yankees Outright Esmil Rogers
The Yankees announced today that right-hander Esmil Rogers has been outrighted to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in order to clear a spot on the 40-man and 25-man roster for outfielder Taylor Dugas.
The 29-year-old Rogers has already been designated for assignment and outrighted this season, but the Yankees selected his contract over the weekend to add some depth to the bullpen. Rogers didn’t make an appearance with the team in his most recent stint with the team and currently sports an unsightly 6.27 ERA on the season. He’s averaged 8.5 K/9 and 3.8 BB/9 with a 42.5 percent ground-ball rate this season in addition to being quite unlucky on balls in play, leading to significantly better marks in FIP (4.63), xFIP (4.10) and SIERA (3.72). Having been previously outrighted, Rogers does have the option of rejecting the Triple-A assignment in favor of free agency.
As for Dugas, the 2012 eighth-rounder has struggled quite a bit in the minors this season. In 199 plate appearances between Double-A and Triple-A, he’s batted .198/.316/.235 with no homers and six steals (in eight tries). Taylor didn’t rank among the Yankees’ Top 30 prospects, per MLB.com and Baseball America, but Fangraphs’ Kiley McDaniel noted that he could have a future as a fourth or fifth outfielder due to above-average speed and an ability to play all three outfield spots. Dugas does have a keen eye at the plate, as BA wrote prior to the 2013 season that he had the best plate discipline in the Yankees’ farm system.
Angels GM Jerry Dipoto To Resign
Jerry Dipoto has made “a final decision” to resign as the Angels GM, Alden Gonzalez of MLB.com reports on Twitter. That appeared to be where things were headed last night, though a report indicated that the club’s owner and president were attempting to convince Dipoto to stay on.
While not unexpected at this point, the overall situation is rather stunning. The Angels are facing some tough decisions over the next month as the team tries to keep up with the Astros in the AL West after opening play today four games back. All said, it’s rather an inopportune time to be making such significant changes in the front office. It remains to be seen how the team will fill the void left in Dipoto’s wake.
The base cause for the signing appears, by all accounts, to be an authority struggle between Dipoto and skipper Mike Scioscia. Prior differences seemed to have been resolved with ownership intervention, and the organization had already exercised Dipoto’s option for the 2016 campaign. But tensions re-emerged over the last several days, according to reports. Without rehashing all the information that has come out, suffice to say that Angels owner Arte Moreno was ultimately unable to maintain a workable allocation of power between the pair of key baseball men.
Dipoto took the GM seat for Los Angeles in the fall of 2011 after the firing of predecessor Tony Reagins. He oversaw major free agent acquisitions, including Albert Pujols, Josh Hamilton, and C.J. Wilson, although those major outlays have often been connected to Moreno’s involvement.
More recently, Dipoto has looked to build the team’s pitching staff through the trade market. He shipped away starting second baseman Howie Kendrick to acquire young lefty Andrew Heaney this offseason after moving slugger Mark Trumbo to acquire Tyler Skaggs and Hector Santiago.
Dipoto also bolstered last year’s club with relievers Joe Smith (signed to a three-year pact) and Huston Street (added in a summer trade). Street ultimately agreed to an extension recently, with the team getting two more years of his services, plus an option year, for a seemingly reasonable $18MM commitment.
But the crowning achievement of Dipoto’s transactional history with the Halos is probably the Mike Trout extension. Having already established himself as the game’s very best player at just 22 years of age, Trout signed on to a six-year, $144.5MM deal. It’s a significant commitment, to be sure, but that money pales in comparison to the overall cash later promised by the Marlins to Giancarlo Stanton. Notably, Stanton was in a much different situation given his service time. But the Trout contract looks to be rather an incredible bargain, given that the club is committed only through his peak prime years with relatively little overall risk.
The Dipoto-constructed Angels had some disappointments along the way, missing the post-season in his first two seasons at the helm despite the major free agent signings. But the club put up 98 wins and an AL West title last year before running into the Royals buzzsaw in the playoffs.
Los Angeles has had its issues this year, with the team’s overall offensive production sagging despite big seasons from Trout and Pujols. Offseason acquisition Matt Joyce has simply not hit, and the club was backed into an awkward situation with Hamilton that ultimately saw him shipped to the Rangers for some salary savings.
Despite the turmoil, however, the club is as noted still very much in the thick of things heading into trade deadline season. As good as Houston has been, putting up an AL-leading 46 wins at the start of the day, the Angels have every opportunity to take another division crown. That’s especially true, perhaps, given that the club reportedly reserved payroll capacity to be deployed over the summer. Now, the question is not only how it will put those funds to use, but who’ll make that decision.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Minor Moves: Tabata, Romak, Wheeler
We’ll track the day’s minor moves here:
- The Pirates have outrighted outfielder Jose Tabata to Triple-A, per the International League transactions page. Recently designated for assignment, Tabata still has another year left on the extension he signed early in his career. It’s no surprise, then, that Tabata appears on the Triple-A Indianapolis roster (Twitter link), meaning that he’s accepted his assignment rather than sacrificing his remaining guaranteed money to become a free agent.
- Pursuant to an upward mobility clause like the one we explained yesterday, the Diamondbacks have notified the rest of the league that infielder/outfielder Jamie Romak is available to any club that is willing to add him to its active roster, MLBTR has learned. The 29-year-old is obviously hoping for a chance at big league playing time, but has also asked the team to sell his contract to a Japanese or Korean club if an MLB job is not available. Despite a very strong recent track record at Triple-A, Romak has only received 23 big league plate appearances in his career (all coming last year with the Dodgers). Thus far in 2015, he’s slashed .299/.375/.541 with 13 home runs over 323 trips to the plate. Notably, Romak has also spent time at second base this season for the first time in his career, adding to his versatility after logging plenty of minor league innings in the corner outfield and at both first and third.
- The Twins have released third baseman Ryan Wheeler, Kevin Oklobzija of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reports on Twitter. Wheeler, who’ll soon turn 27, signed with Minnesota in May after being released by the Angels. He’s struggled ever since, putting up a .233/.243/.315 slash in 74 plate appearances at Triple-A. Wheeler received limited MLB playing time in each of the last three years with the Diamondbacks and Rockies. All said, he has put up a .233/.280/.335 slash in 225 turns at the plate.
Blue Jays Designate Steve Tolleson
The Blue Jays have activated infielder Steve Tolleson from the DL and designated him for assignment, Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet.ca tweets. With Tolleson’s rehab assignment done, the club was forced to make a decision on his roster status.
With Devon Travis and Jose Reyes both healthy and set to play regularly, and Ryan Goins and Danny Valencia set to take the club’s reserve infield slots, Tolleson simply didn’t fit on the 25-man. But he has been useful this year in limited action, hitting a solid .268/.333/.439 over 45 plate appearances.
It remains to be seen, of course, whether the 31-year-old will remain in the Toronto organization. If he clears waivers, he’ll have a choice whether to elect free agency, as is his right given that he’s previously been outrighted.