Rangers Designate Alex Hassan
The Rangers have designated outfelder Alex Hassan for assignment, the club announced. His 40-man spot was needed for outfielder Kyle Blanks, who was called up to replace the injured Mitch Moreland, who in turn underwent surgery on his left elbow for bone chips.
Hassan had already traveled a long road over the offseason, and this will represent his fifth move unless he clears waivers. Obviously, Texas preferred to bring up Blanks rather than using Hassan on the big league roster. That could be due in part to the fact that Hassan has just nine big league plate appearances to his credit.
The 27-year-old was off to a middling start at the plate at Triple-A this year, putting up a .343 OBP (well off his usual standard in the minors) and not hitting for much power. But he does have a fairly well-established track record in the highest level of the minors, with a .281/.385/.407 slash over 1,149 career turns at bat.
Red Sox Designate Anthony Varvaro
The Red Sox have designated righty Anthony Varvaro, manager John Farrell announced on WEEI’s Dale & Holley radio show. Boston will call up lefty Tommy Layne and righty Dalier Hinojosa to add arms to the pen.
Varvaro, 30, had thrown 11 innings this year for the Red Sox after being acquired from the Braves over the winter. He struck out eight and walked six batters over that stretch while allowing five earned runs to cross the plate. Across six seasons in the big leagues, Varvaro has worked to a 3.23 ERA while posting 7.4 K/9 against 3.4 BB/9.
Indians Designate Jerry Sands
The Indians have designated outfielder Jerry Sands for assignment, the club announced. Righty Ryan Webb had his contract purchased as Cleveland looks for solutions to its pitching difficulties.
Sands, 27, has taken 25 trips to the plate this year and produced eight base hits and two walks, good for a short-sample .400 on-base percentage. He has not received much opportunity at the big league level since a solid-enough run at age 23 with the Dodgers (.253/.338/.389 in 227 plate appearances). But in parts of five seasons at the Triple-A level, Sands has slashed a useful .264/.346/.483.
Nationals Agree To Minors Deal With Jose Valverde
The Nationals have reached agreement on a minor league deal with righty Jose Valverde, Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com tweets. Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports reported (Twitter links) that an arrangement was in the works.
The veteran reliever spent the spring with the Padres, working to a 4.15 ERA over 8 2/3 innings while striking out eight and walking only one batter. But with San Diego carrying a loaded pen that was not due to include him, Valverde opted out of his deal.
Valverde enjoyed a long run of success as a closer earlier in his career, but has struggled to get outs over the past two seasons. Between his time with the Tigers in 2013 and his run with the Mets last year, Valverde has tossed 40 frames of 5.63 ERA ball. He has posted 9.5 K/9 against 3.6 BB/9 in that stretch, but has been victimized by the long ball.
Metrics suggest he has been a bit unlucky as well, though only SIERA sees his work as being above average across 2013-14. All said, the Nats will presumably look to get what they can out of the 37-year-old as they seek to deal with performance issues and injuries to Craig Stammen and Casey Janssen.
Rays Release Grant Balfour
Right-hander Grant Balfour, who was designated for assignment by the Rays last week, has cleared release waivers and is a free agent, reports Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN (Twitter link). Wolfson adds that he checked to see if a reunion with the Twins was a possibility, but he’s been told that Balfour will be signing elsewhere.
The 37-year-old Balfour looked to be on his way to the Orioles in the 2013-14 offseason, but his two-year deal fell through after the O’s weren’t comfortable with the results of his physical. Balfour ultimately ended up returning to Tampa Bay — the team with which he revived his career in 2008.
Balfour’s second stint in St. Petersburg, however, did not go as smoothly as his first. In 66 2/3 innings over the past two seasons, Balfour worked to a 5.00 ERA with 57 strikeouts against 45 walks. His ~93mph average fastball velocity dipped to 91.6 mph in 2014, and in this season’s small sample, he averaged just 89.4 mph. However, part of that could be due to the fact that Balfour missed much of Spring Training as he traveled back to his native Australia to be with his dying father for his final days.
From 2008-13, Balfour was a highly effective relief weapon, working to a 2.74 ERA with 9.7 K/9 and 3.5 BB/9 in 380 1/3 innings. Balfour averaged 64 appearances and 63 innings per season in that stretch, and he served as Oakland’s closer for the final two years of that stretch. With the A’s, the fiery Balfour saved 64 games and earned the first All-Star nod of his 12-year Major League career.
The Rays owe Balfour $7MM in 2015 (though $2MM of that figure is deferred). Should he latch on with another team, as Wolfson indicated, that club would be on the hook for only the pro-rated portion of the league minimum for any time Balfour spends on the big league roster.
Rays Designate Everett Teaford
The Rays have designated lefty Everett Teaford for assignment, Roger Mooney of the Tampa Tribune tweets. His roster spot will go to recently acquired southpaw Xavier Cedeno.
Teaford, soon to be 31, gave up one earned run in one appearance this year with Tampa. He saw more extensive use out of the Royals’ pen back in 2011-12, but only owns 108 1/3 big league innings in his career. Over parts of five Triple-A seasons, often working as a starter, Teaford has worked to a 3.34 ERA with 8.5 K/9 against 3.1 BB/9.
Reds To Promote Michael Lorenzen
The Reds will promote right-hander Michael Lorenzen to take a start on Wednesday, C. Trent Rosecrans of the Cincinnati Enquirer tweets. The 23-year-old was taken in the first round of the 2013 draft.
Lorenzen entered the season rated as the game’s 63rd-best overall prospect in the eyes of Baseball Prospectus, while Fangraphs’ Kiley McDaniel ranked him 88th. He was a position player and closer in college, and built up relatively few innings before jumping to 120 2/3 Double-A frames last year. But they were good ones: he posted a 3.13 ERA with 6.3 K/9 against 3.3 BB/9.
Thus far in 2015, Lorenzen has allowed just six earned runs over 19 innings covering three starts. He has just 12 strikeouts in that span, hardly a dominant rate, but has only permitted four free passes.
As McDaniel explains, Lorenzen has already pleasantly surprised with the rapidity of his development and may yet have some ceiling to strive for. The Reds will once again push him forward fairly aggressively, now by asking him to step in for the injured Homer Bailey at the game’s highest level.
If he keeps his roster spot for the rest of the year, Lorenzen will be in good shape to quality down the road for Super Two status. While that would obviously enhance his earning power, he would still be controllable for six seasons after 2015.
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Minor Moves: Marcus Walden
We’ll keep track of the day’s minor moves right here:
- The Reds have released righty Marcus Walden, according to Baseball America’s Matt Eddy. Walden, 26, joined the club as a minor league free agent but was hit hard in his only minor league start this year. Walden has shown enough in the past to warrant 40-man stints (but no big league appearances) with the Blue Jays and Athletics. But he has failed to make the leap to the highest level of the minors while exhibiting an increasing proclivity to issue free passes.
Nationals To Promote A.J. Cole
The Nationals will call up righty A.J. Cole to start for the club tomorrow, Dan Kolko of MASNsports.com reports on Twitter. A starter was needed with Max Scherzer‘s scheduled appearance being pushed back due to a thumb injury.
Cole, 23, opened the year rated as a consensus top-100 prospect. Baseball Prospectus, in particular, is quite high on him, rating him 30th overall. MLB.com, which had Cole in the 52nd slot, praises his “easy velocity,” quality change, improving breaking ball, and overall approach.
It appears that this could be nothing more than a spot start for Cole, given the Nationals’ still-loaded rotation, but it will nevertheless represent his first big league action and first chance to accumulate some service time. In the off chance that he does stick on the active roster, he would be set up to qualify for Super Two status down the line.
Cole was drafted by the Nationals before being shipped to the Athletics as part of the Gio Gonzalez trade. He struggled in one season in the Oakland organization, and was then sent back to D.C. (along with Blake Treinen and Ian Krol) in the three-team swap that sent Michael Morse to the Mariners and John Jaso to the A’s.
He has regained his stock since, obviously, and reached the Triple-A level last year. Across 134 innings in the upper minors in 2014, Cole worked to a 3.14 ERA with 7.5 K/9 and 2.1 BB/9. He has been fairly dominant in three starts in the highest farm level this season, permitting just four earned runs and one free pass while striking out ten in 15 frames.
Rangers Acquire Josh Hamilton
7:02pm: The Angels will actually save approximately $20MM in total on the deal, Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register reports. Texas will pick up about $6MM of the tab, with the remainder of the savings coming from Hamilton sacrificing salary, per the report.
The $20MM is spread unevenly over the three years covered by the contract, per Fletcher. He adds that the deal “likely” has language providing that the Angels would recoup additional money if Hamilton loses pay due to suspension.
After starting the season about $12.5MM under the luxury cap for the current year, the Halos now have closer to $20MM in space, per MLB.com’s Alden Gonzalez (via Twitter). That extra cushion could make the Halos an even more active buyer on the summer trade market than had already been expected.
3:17pm: The wording of the deal — “in exchange for a player to be named later or cash considerations” — is a mere formality, tweets Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. A source tells Wilson that the Rangers aren’t giving up anything of real value to acquire Hamilton.
2:34pm: The Rangers announced today that they have re-acquired outfielder Josh Hamilton from the Angels in exchange for a player to be named later or cash considerations. The Rangers will also be receiving cash from the Angels, the team added, and previous reports have indicated that Texas will be on the hook for less than $7MM of the money that is he owed. To clear a spot on the 40-man roster, right-hander Nick Tepesch has been transferred to the 60-day DL.
The transaction represents a homecoming of sorts for Hamilton, who was named the American League MVP as a member of the Rangers in 2010 and appeared in five consecutive All-Star games with Texas from 2008-12. The Rangers will reportedly pay Hamilton just $2-3MM of what he’s owed, and Hamilton will give up about $6MM worth of guaranteed money, which will be offset by the lack of income tax in the state of Texas. The Angels are saving somewhere in the vicinity of $8MM of what he’s owed over the rest of his contract, and the deal has reportedly been restructured to give Hamilton an opt-out clause with a significant buyout following the 2016 season.
Hamilton’s return to Texas was, of course, prompted by a relapse into substance abuse this offseason that led to a perhaps too-public look into the outfielder’s personal life and created a great deal of drama and controversy. After a panel composed of two league officials and two players union representatives deadlocked on whether or not Hamilton had violated his treatment program with the relapse, an arbitrator ruled that he had not, and therefore could not be suspended by the league. The news came as a surprise to many, and reports indicated that commissioner Rob Manfred had indeed intended to suspend Hamilton before the arbitrator eliminated that as a possibility. While the factors that led to the ruling remain unknown, Hamilton likely helped his cause by coming forth voluntarily and admitting his relapse.
Today’s trade brings to a close a tenure with the Angels that was marred not only by this most recent controversy, but also by injuries and a failure to live up to the lofty expectations that came along with his hefty five-year, $125MM contract. Hamilton was not entirely unproductive for the Halos, as his .255/.316/.426 batting line translated to a 110 OPS+. However, the level of production that he provided certainly didn’t line up with his average annual salary of $25MM, or even the $34MM he received in 2013-14 on the backloaded contract. The Angels, of course, will remain on the hook for the majority of that salary.
Hamilton and the Rangers will both hope that a return to a familiar environment will help to rekindle some of the production that made him one of the most feared hitters in baseball for half a decade. From 2008-12, .305/.363/.549, averaging 28 homers per season and 36 per 162 games played. Once he’s fully recovered from shoulder surgery, which should be in mid-to-late May, Hamilton will presumably slide into left field. Texas currently has little in the way of long-term options at the position, with the possible exception of Ryan Rua, who is currently on the shelf sprained ankle and a fracture in his right foot. Opposite Hamilton will be another corner outfielder whose production has yet to live up to his eye-popping contract — Shin-Soo Choo. That Rangers’ hopes for contention in the near future will now be tied to the performance of that duo, as well as first baseman Prince Fielder, as the three under-performing but well-compensated former All-Stars have each been shadows of their former selves in recent years.
Of course, though Hamilton hasn’t been gone from the Rangers for that long, the organization still looks markedly different than it did in his final year. Manager Ron Washington abruptly resigned late last season, and he’s since been replaced by Jeff Banister, whose hiring prompted former bench coach (and managerial hopeful) Tim Bogar to join the Angels. Michael Young has retired, while Ian Kinsler has been traded to the Tigers. Nelson Cruz has signed a pair of free agent contracts with other teams since Hamilton’s departure, and Mike Napoli is in his third year with the Red Sox. The team is not without its share of familiar faces for Hamilton, however, as he’ll be reunited with the likes of Adrian Beltre, Elvis Andrus, Leonys Martin, Neftali Feliz, Derek Holland and Colby Lewis, among others.
Billy Casey of Shutdown Inning and Brandon Land of One Strike Away first reported trade talks between the two sides more than a week ago. SI.com’s Michael McCann reported that the Angels could part with him in a matter of days, and FOX’s Ken Rosenthal reported that a trade was looming (Twitter links). MLB.com’s T.R. Sullivan first tweeted that a trade to the Rangers was close, and CBS’ Jon Heyman added that an agreement was in place. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News and Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram each added details on the financial components of the trade, with Grant adding mention of the opt-out clause. Mike DiGiovanna of the L.A. Times tweeted that everything was done, pending league approval, and MLB.com’s Alden Gonzalez was the first to tweet that the deal would be likely announced on Monday. Heyman tweeted shortly before the announcement that the deal had been finalized.
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