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.
Rangers Purchase Contract Of Antoan Richardson
Here are the day’s minor moves:
- The Rangers have purchased the contract of outfielder Antoan Richardson, as Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram tweets. Richardson had been signed to a minor league deal with an invite to big league camp, but his deal included an early out clause that led to his ascension to the 40-man. Texas created roster space by transferring injured starter Martin Perez to the 60-day DL. The speedy, switch-hitting Richardson is competing for a reserve outfield role.
Rays To Sign Jonny Venters
The Rays have agreed to a two-year, minor league deal with lefty Jonny Venters, according to Roger Mooney of the Tampa Tribune (via Twitter). Venters had spent all of his professional career with the Braves.
Once one of the game’s most-feared southpaw relievers, Venters has seen his career derailed by elbow troubles in recent years. He underwent his third Tommy John procedure in September, and will now look to accomplish the rare feat of returning to being a productive big leaguer after a trio of UCL replacements.
Soon to turn 30, Venters has not pitched in the big leagues since 2012. After a pair of sub-2.00 ERA, 80+ inning campaigns to start his career, Venters took a slight step back that year (3.22 ERA in 58 2/3 frames) while battling through elbow pain that sent him to the DL. He still seemed poised to continue the excellent start to his career, which included better than ten strikeouts per nine innings and nearly a 70% groundball rate, but went under the knife in March of 2013 and has not yet made it all the way back.
With a two-year minor league pact, Tampa will presumably look to provide Venters with rehab resources and bring him back slowly. It would be an achievement at this point for him to even get back to throwing at full effort, let alone to contribute to a big league pen, but there is at least some precedent in the form of pitchers like Jason Isringhausen.
Minor Moves: Michael Taylor, Kevin Vance
Here are today’s minor moves from around the league…
- White Sox outfielder Michael Taylor has retired at age 29, Dan Hayes of CSNChicago.com tweets. Once a well-regarded prospect in the Phillies and Athletics systems and a top-50 prospect leaguewide, Taylor took only 114 career plate appearances at the Major League level. He did put up a fairly productive .278/.369/.441 slash over six seasons and more than 2,500 turns at bat at Triple-A, but never forced his way into the big league mix.
- The D-Backs have inked right-hander Kevin Vance to a minor league deal, tweets agent Joe Rosen. The 24-year-old was a 19th-round pick by the White Sox out of Connecticut in 2011 and has worked to a 3.69 ERA with 10.1 K/9 and 2.7 BB/9 in 268 1/3 innings of work throughout his minor league career to date. Baseball America ranked him 19th among ChiSox farmhands prior to the 2013 season, noting that his fastball/curveball combination could eventually land him in a Major League bullpen.
Mariners, Kevin Correia Agree To Minor League Deal
The Mariners and right-hander Kevin Correia have agreed to a minor league deal with an invite to big league Spring Training, tweets Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times. Correia, a client of All Bases Covered Sports Management, is in Mariners’ camp today, he adds. Seattle has since announced the move.
Correia, 34, struggled to a 5.44 ERA in 154 innings between the Twins and Dodgers in 2014 — the second season of a two-year, $10MM pact he had inked with Minnesota prior to the 2013 campaign. Correia pulled his weight in the first year of the deal, registering a 4.18 ERA in 185 1/3 innings, but his middling strikeout rate (4.8 K/9 over the past two seasons) and hittable arsenal appear to have caught up with him in 2014.
Both FIP and xFIP feel that Correia’s ERA could’ve been a bit lower, pegging him at 4.67, and the veteran righty has shown very good control over the past four seasons (2.3 BB/9). The Mariners had a good experience with a similar veteran pitcher in 2014, receiving 165 innings of a 3.65 ERA from right-hander Chris Young, who eventually signed with the Royals. They’ll hope for similarly productive results from Correia, though perhaps in a different role; It seems unlikely that he’d crack a rotation that figures to include Felix Hernandez, Hisashi Iwakuma, J.A. Happ, James Paxton and Taijuan Walker when all are healthy (with Roenis Elias and Erasmo Ramirez serving as fallback options), but Correia could compete to serve as a long reliever in manager Lloyd McClendon’s bullpen.
Shawn Camp Announces Retirement
Shawn Camp, who pitched 11 seasons in the Majors, announced his retirement today. Camp worked in the bullpens of the Royals, Rays, Blue Jays, Cubs, and Phillies, topping 70 innings in four different seasons. Camp pitched 541 career games in total, including an MLB-leading 80 for the Cubs in 2012.
“I would like to thank all the great organizations I had the privilege to play for during my career,” Camp said through a statement. “I also had the opportunity to play for some tremendous managers and coaches as well as play alongside some extraordinary teammates. I have been a part of professional baseball for the past 17 years and it’s in my blood. As such, I’ll be looking to pursue other opportunities within major league baseball in the future. Most importantly, as I transition to the next chapter, I will get to spend more time with my family who has supported me beyond belief over the past 17 years.”
Camp told me his ultimate goal is to be a pitching coach one day, but he’s open-minded to any opportunities that may come in. He also has interest in working with young players in the minor leagues.
Minor Moves: Ji-Man Choi
Here are today’s minor moves from throughout the game.
- The Mariners have outrighted first baseman Ji-Man Choi to Triple-A Tacoma, Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times tweets. The M’s designated Choi for assignment earlier this week after he broke his leg in a Spring Training game on Wednesday, an injury that will cause him to miss much of, or perhaps all of, the upcoming season. He hit .283/.391/.392 in 281 plate appearances for Tacoma in 2014.
Royals Sign Chris Young
The Royals have announced that they’ve signed pitcher Chris Young to a one-year, big-league deal. Young will receive $675K in base salary, plus up to $5.325MM in bonuses. Those bonuses will be for roster days, innings pitched and starts, with Young receiving $250K on Opening Day and then $250K for 30 days, 60 days and 90 days on the roster. To clear space for Young on their 40-man roster, the Royals moved Kris Medlen to the 60-day disabled list.
Young, 35, enjoyed a comeback season with the Mariners in 2014, posting a 3.65 ERA with 5.9 K/9 and 3.3 BB/9 in 165 innings after not appearing in the big leagues in 2013. He has obvious weaknesses — he doesn’t throw hard, doesn’t strike out many batters and allows tons of fly balls, suggesting he won’t be able to sustain his relatively low ERA from last season. As Yahoo! Sports’ Jeff Passan tweets, though, the Royals’ strong defensive outfield should help Young. Also, he could benefit from Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, which has stifled home runs lately. Young has suffered from injuries in recent years, but the Royals’ guaranteed commitment to him is minimal, so they’re insulated from significant risk.
It’s unclear how Young will fit on the Royals’ roster. He’s surely most useful as a starter, but he doesn’t appear likely to supplant anyone in the Royals’ current rotation of Yordano Ventura, Danny Duffy, Jason Vargas, Edinson Volquez and Jeremy Guthrie. He could, instead, find a home in the Royals’ bullpen, perhaps working in long relief until or unless he’s needed in the rotation.
For Young to receive a big-league deal at this point in the offseason qualifies as a minor coup. He had been one of only a few significant free-agent starters remaining on the market, along with Kevin Correia and Randy Wolf.
Andy McCullough of the Kansas City Star was the first to tweet Young’s base salary and maximum incentive earnings. ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick and MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan tweeted key details about the structure of Young’s contract.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Giants Sign Alfredo Aceves
The Giants have signed righty Alfredo Aceves, Matt Eddy of Baseball America writes. The deal is presumably of the minor-league variety.
Aceves, 32, posted a 6.52 ERA with 7.4 K/9 and 1.9 BB/9 in 19 1/3 innings with the Yankees last season and allowed an extreme number of fly balls in the process, and he’s generally struggled since a strong 2011 campaign as a swingman in Boston. He did, however, pitch fairly well in 28 1/3 innings with the Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre last year. His ability to start or pitch in multiple-inning stints could prove useful, although perhaps only in an emergency for the time being.
Minor Moves: Gamel, Carpenter, Solis, Thurston
Here are today’s minor moves from around the league, all via the Twitter account of Baseball America’s Matt Eddy …
- First baseman Mat Gamel will make another attempt at a comeback, this time with the Yankees, Eddy tweets. Now 29, the former Brewers prospect had been set to try for a return last year with the Braves, but was released after yet another knee injury. Gamel has not had a full season of action since 2011, when he was productive at Triple-A.
- Righty Chris Carpenter has inked a minor league pact with the Reds, per Eddy. The 29-year-old worked to a 4.73 ERA over 32 1/3 innings in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball league last year. He has spent time with the Cubs and Red Sox previously, briefly cracking the bigs in both 2011 and 2012.
- After being released in late February, backstop Ali Solis has re-signed with the Dodgers, according to Eddy. The 27-year-old has just 11 MLB plate appearances to his name, and owns a .237/.266/.337 line in 404 Triple-A plate appearances.
- The Red Sox have signed veteran infielder/outfielder Joe Thurston to a minor league deal, tweets Eddy. The 35-year-old has a bit of big league experience, most of which came with the 2009 Cardinals when he hit .225/.316/.330 in 307 plate appearances. Thurston has spent the past two seasons playing in the Mexican League and the independent Atlantic League. He has a career .292/.356/.429 batting line in parts of 12 Triple-A seasons.