Rangers Release Michael Kirkman
The Rangers have released left-hander Michael Kirkman, tweets Stefan Stevenson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Kirkman had been non-tendered by the Rangers in December and then re-signed to a minor league deal with an invite to Spring Training.
The 28-year-old Kirkman has spent his entire career with the Rangers but saw just 5 2/3 innings with the team in 2014. In 106 2/3 innings, Kirkman has worked to a 4.98 ERA 8.7 K/9, 4.6 BB/9 and a 39.4 percent ground-ball rate. Kirkman’s career has been slowed by a battle with skin cancer that limited his time on the field over the past few seasons, but he was able to take the mound again last season and pitched an inning and two-thirds in Spring Training this year before today’s release.
A number of clubs will likely be on the lookout for left-handed depth over the course of Spring Training, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Kirkman get an audition with another team in the next few weeks. The Mets are one team in particular known to be looking for left-handed relief help, following the news that Josh Edgin will undergo Tommy John surgery.
It’s worth noting, though, that lefty hitters have had more success against Kirkman in his career than right-handed hitters. He does, however, possess much better K/BB numbers against lefties, and his FIP/xFIP marks against same-handed hitters (3.65 and 3.72, respectively) are much better than those same marks against righties (4.80, 4.86) in spite of the bottom-line results.
Minor Moves: Mark Hendrickson
Here are today’s minor moves from around the league…
- The Orioles have released left-hander Mark Hendrickson, tweets MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko. The veteran southpaw and former Oriole was in camp on a minor league deal with the hopes of making it back to the Majors for the first time since 2011. Now 40 years old, Hendrickson spent the 2009-11 seasons with Baltimore, working to a 4.80 ERA with 121 strikeouts against 59 walks in 191 1/3 innings of work. In parts of 10 big league seasons, the towering lefty has a 5.03 ERA with 5.1 K/9 and 2.7 BB/9 in 1169 innings. Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun hears that the O’s may offer Hendrickson a different role within the organization if he elects to retire as a player (Twitter link). Manager Buck Showalter has previously expressed that he feels Hendrickson could make a good pitching coach, per Encina.
Phillies Release Xavier Paul
The Phillies announced this morning that they have released outfielder Xavier Paul, who was in Major League camp with the club after signing a minor league deal last November.
Paul, 30, went 1-for-9 with a solo homer for the Phillies in Spring Training. The left-handed hitter enjoyed a pair of solid seasons at the plate in Cincinnati from 2012-13, hitting .264/.350/.420 in 335 plate appearances, most of which came against right-handed pitching, given his significant career platoon splits. Paul has batted .264/.326/.398 in 681 big league plate appearances against right-handed pitching, but against lefties he’s seen just 86 PAs and hit .138/.198/.150.
After spending much of the 2014 season with Baltimore’s Triple-A affiliate, Paul latched on with the D-Backs in the second half, picking up a pair of hits in 21 big league plate appearances in the month of August. The Paragon Sports client will presumably draw some interest elsewhere as a lefty option off the bench.
Minor Moves: Ben Francisco, Jiwan James
Here are Sunday’s minor moves from around MLB:
- The Diamondbacks announced they have released outfielder Ben Francisco. Arizona signed the 33-year-old to a minor league deal last December after he spent 2014 with the independent Atlantic League’s Lancaster Barnstormers posting a line of .242/.303/.390 in 244 plate appearances (57 games). Francisco, who was 1-for-8 during his Spring Training run with the Diamondbacks, last played a MLB game in 2013 and has a career mark of .253/.323/.418 covering parts of seven seasons with the Indians, Phillies, Blue Jays, Astros, Rays, and Yankees.
- The Tigers have signed outfielder Jiwan James after he participated in the team’s tryout camp last week, tweets MLB.com’s Jason Beck. The 25-year-old had signed last month with the Bridgeport Bluefish of the independent Atlantic League. Before being sidelined the past two seasons for surgery on his knee and for Crohn’s Disease, James was a top prospect for the Phillies being ranked on multiple occasions by Baseball America as the organization’s best athlete, fastest runner, and best defensive outfielder.
Yankees Release Mat Gamel
Here are today’s minor moves from around the game:
- The Yankees have released corner infielder Mat Gamel barely a week after it emerged they were signing him to a minor-league deal, according to the International League transactions page. The former top Brewers prospect was attempting a comeback after missing the last two seasons with ACL tears. The last season in which he saw significant action was 2011, when he hit .310/.372/.540 in 545 plate appearances for Triple-A Nashville. He received a total of 269 plate appearances in the big leagues from 2008 through 2012.
Brewers Re-Sign Francisco Rodriguez
The Brewers have announced that they’ve signed closer Francisco Rodriguez to a two-year, $13MM deal with an option for 2017. The Scott Boras client will receive $3.5MM in 2015 and $5.5MM in 2016, with $2MM in deferred salary and a $2MM buyout on the option. That option will cost either $6MM and $8MM, as Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
At $13MM, Rodriguez will land just shy of the $14MM that MLBTR predicted before the start of the offseason, though the option structure had to be agreed upon to achieve that. The deal appears to slot in fairly sensibly among recent contracts for similar-quality relievers. Only the younger Luke Gregerson landed a three-year deal (at a $6MM AAV), while Koji Uehara ($18MM — just before hitting the market), Sergio Romo ($15MM), and Pat Neshek ($12.5MM) all got significant guarantees on two-year pacts.
Rodriguez, 33, has spent most of the past four seasons in Milwaukee. All said, he owns a 3.11 ERA over his 193 2/3 frames with the Brewers. He has maintained double-digit strikeout-per-nine rates over the last two years in addition to an excellent K%-BB%. Though FIP has been down on Rodriguez’s work in recent campaigns, other ERA estimators like xFIP and SIERA view him as a 3.00 or better performer.
One potential knock on Rodriguez — the many miles on his otherwise relatively young arm — has a positive side as well. Rodriguez has been exceptionally durable, putting up an average of 69 innings running all the way back to 2003. And he still delivers his fastball in the same general, low-90s range that he has found success with in the past.
In nailing down the closer role in Milwaukee and taking Rodriguez off of the market, the signing goes a long way to clarifying the remaining relief market. For one thing, it leaves Rafael Soriano as the undisputed best free agent still available. For another, it takes away the most obvious trade match for the Phillies and closer Jonathan Papelbon.
Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com reported the signing, length, and presence of an option (Twitter links). Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports reported the total guarantee on Twitter. Haudricourt tweeted the annual breakdown.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Minor Moves: Escalona, Head, Rowland, Stock
Baseball America’s Matt Eddy reports several new minor league transcations (all coming via Twitter). Let’s take a look…
- The Giants have signed hard-throwing right-hander Edgmer Escalona to a minor league pact, Eddy reports. Though Escalona didn’t appear in the Majors least year, the Orioles thought enough of his arm to give him a Major League deal in the offseason. Escalona, 28, has a career 4.50 ERA in exactly 100 innings in the Majors, but he posted a 5.80 ERA from 2012-13 with Colorado. Though he averages just under 94 mph on his heater, he’s only whiffed 6.4 hitters per nine innings in the Majors.
- The Athletics released corner infielder Miles Head after a pair of injury-plagued seasons in which he batted just .233/.292/.352 at Double-A. Head was one of the prospects sent to the A’s from the Red Sox in the Josh Reddick–Andrew Bailey swap prior to the 2012 season and has previously ranked among the organization’s 10 best prospects.
- Right-hander Robby Rowland has signed a minor league deal with the Cardinals, per Eddy. Formerly a third-round pick of the D-Backs (2010), Rowland has yet to pitch at a level higher than Class-A Advanced. He has a lifetime 5.28 ERA in the minors with 5.6 K/9 and 2.9 BB/9. Rowland turned 23 in December.
- The Astros have signed righty Robert Stock, says Eddy. Stock is a converted catcher who was drafted in the second round by the Cardinals in 2009 when Houston GM Jeff Luhnow was still their scouting director. Stock is clearly still a work in progress on the mound, as he’s walked 6.9 hitters per nine innings at two different Class-A levels.
Dontrelle Willis To Retire
Left-hander Dontrelle Willis, who was in camp with the Brewers on a minor league deal, has informed the Brewers that he will retire, tweets MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy. A neck injury has slowed him this spring, and the former Rookie of the Year had yet to get into a game.
Willis beat out Scott Podsednik and Brandon Webb for the 2003 NL Rookie of the Year Award at the age of 21 and helped the Marlins to their World Series victory that season. In his first four years in the league, the “D-Train” turned in a strong 3.44 ERA with 6.7 K/9 against 2.8 BB/9. Though he reached the 200-inning mark for a third straight season in 2007, however, Willis’ ERA spiked to 5.17, and he was traded to the Tigers alongside Miguel Cabrera that winter. Willis’ career never got back on track after that point, however, as the southpaw worked just 199 innings over the 2008-11 seasons, pitching to a 6.15 ERA with more walks than strikeouts.
Since the 2011 season — the last that he pitched in the Majors, Willis has pitched for minor league affiliates of the Giants (twice), Reds, Orioles and Angels in addition to a pair of stints in the independent leagues. He’ll retire with a 4.17 ERA in 1221 2/3 Major League innings and over $40MM worth of career earnings, per Baseball-Reference.com. We at MLBTR wish Willis well in his post-playing days.
Red Sox Sign Yoan Moncada
The Red Sox have officially signed heralded Cuban infielder Yoan Moncada to a minor league contract, the team announced. Terms of the deal weren’t announced, though Moncada reportedly received a $31.5MM signing bonus according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post (Twitter links).
Because Boston had already exceeded its bonus pool for the 2014-15 international signing period, the team will pay a full 100 percent tax on Moncada’s bonus, bringing the total cost for his services to $63MM. On top of that, the Red Sox will now be restricted from signing any international amateur for more than $300K in the 2015-16 and the 2016-17 international signing periods.
Moncada, a 19-year-old switch-hitting infielder, is the most sought-after international prospect in recent history. Said to be a true five-tool talent, scouts have likened his upside to that of Robinson Cano and Chase Utley (in his prime). Prospect specialists at Baseball America, MLB.com, Baseball Prospectus and Fangraphs have all suggested that Moncada would rank in the top five to 15 prospects in Major League Baseball upon signing, which will make him Boston’s new No. 1 prospect. Unlike recent Cuban signings such as Jose Abreu and Rusney Castillo, however, Moncada will likely require at least one season in the minors — possibly two.
Over the past several months, the Red Sox have been one of the primary teams connected to Moncada, although many believed the Yankees and Dodgers to be in a better position to land him, as the Red Sox don’t have a clear long-term need in the infield with Dustin Pedroia at second base and Pablo Sandoval entering the first of a five-year, $95MM contract. (Sandoval, of course, could move over to first base in a few years.) Xander Bogaerts figures to be the long-term answer at shortstop, though the expectation among scouts is that Moncada will end up at second, third or possibly in center field (where Castillo is currently slotted).
As Sanchez wrote last week, the overage tax must be paid to the league in full by July 15, whereas the bonus can be paid out in installments over the course of the next three years. It’s not known at this time whether or not the Red Sox made the best offer, but agent David Hastings did say recently that size of the bonus would not be the sole determining factor in choosing a team. Moncada also had private workouts for the Yankees, Dodgers, Padres, Brewers, Rays, D-Backs, Tigers, Giants, Rangers and Cubs (though the last two would have been ineligible to sign him until July 2, as they had incurred maximum penalties in the 2013-14 international signing period, thereby restricting them in the 2014-15 period).
With this agreement, Moncada has absolutely shattered the previous record signing bonus for an international amateur. That distinction was held briefly by infielder Roberto Baldoquin, following his $8MM bonus from the Angels earlier this winter, and then held even more briefly by right-hander Yoan Lopez, who received an $8.27MM bonus from the D-Backs. The size of Moncada’s bonus will likely come up in discussing the next collective bargaining agreement, as it figures to be a major talking point among proponents of an international draft.
MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez was the first to report Moncada’s deal with Boston (via Twitter).
Braves, Peter Moylan Agree To Minor League Deal
MARCH 11: Atlanta has announced a two-year, minor league deal with Moylan. When he is done rehabbing, Moylan will become a player/coach with the club’s Rookie affiliate.
MARCH 6: The Braves and right-hander Peter Moylan have agreed to a minor league pact that will bring the Australian-born sidearmer back to Atlanta, where his Major League career began, MLBTR’s Zach Links reports on Twitter.
Moylan, as O’Brien notes, is about 11 months into rehab from his second Tommy John surgery and could be ready to pitch by midseason. The 36-year-old Moylan has been injury prone throughout his career, having also undergone surgeries to repair a bulging disc in his back and a torn labrum in his right shoulder. However, from 2007-10, he made 259 relief appearances with the Braves, working to a 2.44 ERA with 7.0 K/9 and 4.0 BB/9 in 232 1/3 innings. Moylan’s sidearm delivery has always been tough on righties, who have just a .597 OPS against him in his career. However, it’s also led to problems against left-handed batters, as hitters have roughed up for an .805 OPS when holding the platoon advantage.
Moylan’s back surgery, shoulder surgery and second Tommy John have all come since 2011, which helps to explain why the Aussie has totaled just 28 2/3 innings over the past four seasons combined. He didn’t pitch in the Majors at all last year, though he was in Major League camp with the Astros after signing a minor league deal.