Astros Select Kenedy Corona
The Astros announced Tuesday that they’ve selected the contract of outfield prospect Kenedy Corona. Barring a late additional move, it seems he’s the lone addition to their 40-man roster prior to tonight’s deadline to protect players from the Rule 5 Draft. Their 40-man roster is up to 38 players. Ari Alexander of Houston’s KPRC-2 first reported that Corona would be added to the roster.
Corona, 23, came to Houston by way of the 2019 trade that sent outfielder Jake Marisnick from the Astros to the Mets. He spent the bulk of the 2023 season with Houston’s Double-A affiliate, batting .244/.324/.449 with 20 homers and 31 steals in a generally pitcher-friendly setting. He drew a walk in 9.8% of his plate appearances and fanned at a 25.9% clip that the organization would surely like to see him pare down in the future.
Baseball America ranks Corona 14th among Houston farmhands, touting his plus speed, above-average power and range in center field. However, while he’s adept at not chasing pitches off the plate, his contact skills are described as fringe-average, and his right-handed bat was fairly pedestrian against right-handed pitching in 2023 (.244/.336/.426). Against southpaws, however, he turned in a much more robust .278/.313/.579 batting line.
Reds Select Rece Hinds, Christian Roa, Jacob Hurtubise
The Reds announced that they have added three players to their 40-man roster ahead of the 5:00 pm CT Rule 5 deadline: outfielder Rece Hinds, right-hander Christian Roa, and outfielder Jacob Hurtubise. Their 40-man is now full.
Hinds, 23, is the Reds’ No. 10 prospect, per MLB Pipeline, and most sources agree he’ll be ready to make his big league debut at some point in 2024. In 109 games with Double-A Chattanooga last season, he showed off his power potential, crushing 23 home runs and 58 extra-base hits. He ran well for a slugging outfielder, too, swiping 20 bags and legging out six triples. However, the righty batter also struck out in a third of his plate appearances, so he’ll need to improve his plate discipline if he wants to put his power on display at the major league level.
As for his defense, Hinds made the move from third base to the outfield in 2022, and he seems to have adjusted well. He has spent time in both corners, but his best asset is his powerful arm, so right field seems like the better fit. The Reds have a glut of talented young players all over the diamond, but there is less of a logjam in the outfield, so there should be room for Hinds if he cuts down on the strikeouts and keeps hitting bombs in the minors.
Roa, 24, struggled after his promotion to Triple-A last summer, seeing his strikeout rate fall and his home run rate rise. At the same time, the 2020 second-round pick showed off some phenomenal strikeout stuff in 2023, striking out 33.7% of batters faced in 13 starts at Double-A Chattanooga and 28.6% of batters faced in 15 games (12 starts) at Triple-A Louisville. If he can rein in the walks (16.6% walk rate across Double- and Triple-A), he could make his way to the majors at some point next season. Presumably, he will serve as rotation depth at Triple-A, something the Reds have no shortage of. In addition to Roa, the team has Lyon Richardson, Connor Phillips, Levi Stoudt, and Carson Spiers on the 40-man roster, all of whom made starts for the big league team in 2023 with limited success.
Hurtubise, 25, doesn’t have the prospect pedigree of either Hinds or Roa, but he might have been an appealing target in the Rule 5 Draft following his strong performance in 2023. In 83 games at Double-A, he slashed .306/.453/.492 with a 159 wRC+, and he kept mashing after a mid-August promotion to Triple-A, slashing .390/.537/.460 the rest of the way. While he is surely due for some significant regression, his plate discipline was genuinely impressive, and his speed is the real deal. He is primarily a corner outfielder, but he has experience in center as well, so he profiles as a fourth or fifth outfielder.
Tigers Select Wilmer Flores, Dillon Dingler
The Tigers announced they’ve added right-hander Wilmer Flores and catcher Dillon Dingler to the 40-man roster. In corresponding moves, righties Brenan Hanifee and Freddy Pacheco have been designated for assignment. Flores and Dingler would otherwise have been eligible for the Rule 5 draft.
Flores, the younger brother of the Giants veteran infielder of the same name, is a 22-year-old pitcher from Venezuela. He went undrafted in 2020 out of an Arizona junior college. While he entered pro ball without much fanfare, Flores has developed into one of the best prospects in the system. He was a fringe top 100 talent going into 2023. Baseball America ranked him eighth in the Detroit organization midseason.
Listed at 6’4″ and 225 pounds, Flores has prototype size. Scouting reports praise his mid-90s sinker and an offspeed combination of a cutter and curveball. He also has solid control and is regarded as a potential starter. Flores spent the bulk of 2023 at Double-A Erie, pitching to a 3.90 ERA through 90 2/3 innings. He struck out 24.3% of opponents and kept the ball on the ground at a 48.6% clip while walking a slightly elevated 9.5% of batters faced.
Dingler, 25, is a right-handed hitting catcher. The Tigers selected him with the 38th pick in the 2020 draft out of Ohio State. He ranked sixth in the system midseason at Baseball America. The outlet praised his athleticism, arm strength and defensive potential. While there’s a lot of swing-and-miss to his game, he has shown strong plate discipline and some power upside in a 6’3″ frame.
Dingler split this year between three minor league levels, hitting .256/.361/.478 with 16 homers through 89 games. He struck out in nearly 28% of his plate appearances while walking 11% of the time. He’s likely to start next season in Triple-A but could get a big league look at some point in 2024.
Hanifee got a cup of coffee late in the ’23 campaign. The 25-year-old pitched five innings over three relief appearances, allowing three runs. He averaged 93.7 MPH on his sinker in that limited look. Before his call-up, Hanifee worked in a swing role at Triple-A Toledo. The former fourth round draftee turned in a 4.38 ERA in 90 1/3 innings spanning 25 appearances. He kept the ball on the ground at a massive 57.2% clip that could get him some attention in a minor trade or waiver claim in the next week.
Pacheco, a pure reliever, hasn’t throw a pitch in the Detroit organization. The Tigers claimed him off waivers from the Cardinals during Spring Training. He opened the season on the injured list and underwent UCL surgery in early June. It’s likely that recovery will carry into the ’24 campaign. Pacheco has yet to make his MLB debut but turned in strong results in the upper minors with St. Louis in 2022.
Blue Jays Select Adam Macko
The Blue Jays announced that they have selected the contract of left-hander Adam Macko. Today is the deadline for clubs to add players to their roster in order to prevent them from being eligible in next month’s Rule 5 draft. Ari Alexander of KPRC 2 reported on the move prior to the official announcement.
Macko, 23 next month, was a seventh-round pick of the Mariners in the 2019 draft. In the years after that selection, he wasn’t able to throw many innings both due to the pandemic and injuries. From 2019 through 2022, he logged 95 total innings with a 3.98 earned run average. His 12.5% walk rate was on the high side but he was able to strike out a massive 35% of batters faced.
The Blue Jays were clearly intrigued, acquiring him from the Mariners alongside Erik Swanson in the deal that sent Teoscar Hernández to Seattle a year ago. Macko’s first season with his new club went well, tossing 86 innings over 20 High-A starts. His 4.81 ERA might not look impressive at first glance, but he struck out 28.5% of opponents while keeping his walk rate down to a 10.8% clip. He also kept 44.8% of batted balls on the ground. His .327 batting average on balls in play and 63.9% strand rate were both on the unlucky side of average, which is why his 3.97 FIP was almost a full run better than his ERA.
Macko hasn’t yet reached Double-A but the Jays evidently thought there was at least some chance of him getting attention in the Rule 5. Instead, they will give him a roster spot and install him as pitching depth as he will try to work his way towards his big league debut.
Tigers, Bligh Madris Agree To Minor League Deal
The Tigers and first baseman/outfielder Bligh Madris have agreed to a minor league pact, reports Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press. His contract includes an invitation to major league spring training.
The 27-year-old Madris was briefly in the Tigers organization last offseason after they claimed him off waivers from the Pirates. Detroit wound up designating Madris for assignment themselves, however, and ultimately traded him to the Astros in exchange for cash.
Madris spent the entire season in the Houston organization, appearing in a dozen big league games plus another 100 contests at the Triple-A level. He hit just .154/.267/.192 in a tiny sample of 30 MLB plate appearances in addition to posting a .235/.349/.413 slash in 456 trips to the plate with Triple-A Sugar Land. In all, he’s appeared in 51 MLB games between Houston and Pittsburgh but has struggled to replicate otherwise solid production from the upper minors.
The lefty-swinging Madris has consistently put up solid numbers against right-handed pitching, turning in respective OPS marks of .811, .837 and .836 from 2021-23 when holding the platoon advantage. Overall, he’s a .266/.355/.448 hitter in parts of three Triple-A campaigns. The Tigers’ outfield currently consists of Mark Canha, Parker Meadows, Riley Greene and Akil Baddoo, with utilityman Zach McKinstry also in the mix for corner time. Madris will give the Tigers another lefty bat to compete for playing time in the outfield and potentially at first base, where former No. 1 overall pick Spencer Torkelson is entrenched after a 31-homer season and breakout second half in 2023.
Rockies, Geoff Hartlieb Agree To Minor League Deal
The Rockies have agreed to a minor league contract with free-agent righty Geoff Hartlieb, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. The former Pirates and Mets reliever, a client of Paragon Sports International, will presumably head to spring training as a non-roster invitee.
Hartlieb, 29, spent the 2023 season in the Marlins organization and tossed four innings of one-run ball in the Majors. The rest of his season was spent in Triple-A Jacksonville, where he notched a solid 3.63 ERA with a 23.8% strikeout rate, 9.3% walk rate and 47.6% ground-ball rate in 44 2/3 innings of bullpen work.
Through parts of four Major League seasons, Hartlieb has been tagged for a 7.17 ERA in 70 1/3 innings, due largely to lackluster command. He’s averaged better than 96 mph on his four-seamer and better than 94 mph on his sinker, generating grounders at a healthy 49% rate and missing enough bats (20.4% strikeout rate) to get by if he could pare down the free passes. Hartlieb, however, has walked 15.1% of his opponents in the Majors, which has unsurprisingly proven untenable.
The Rockies have minimal certainty in their bullpen and figure to have multiple spots up for grabs heading into the 2024 season. It stands to reason that Hartlieb will be one of many experienced bullpen options brought in on minimal or no-commitment deals such as this one. He’s out of minor league options, so if he cracks the big league roster at any point, he’ll have to stick in the Majors or else be designated for assignment and exposed to waivers.
Seven Players Reject Qualifying Offers
All seven players who received a $20.325MM qualifying offer this year have rejected it, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. The deadline for a decision is today at 3 pm Central but it seems all of Shohei Ohtani, Cody Bellinger, Matt Chapman, Sonny Gray, Josh Hader, Aaron Nola and Blake Snell have already made up their minds.
There wasn’t much drama with any of these decisions, as all seven were considered locks to reject and still collect sizeable free agent contracts. On MLBTR’s list of the Top 50 Free Agents, six of the seven player were predicted to get a nine-figure deal in the coming months. The only exception was Gray, who was limited by his 34 years of age to a prediction of $90MM over four years. The players had one week to gauge the market after receiving those QOs and it doesn’t seem any of them got any sense that accepting the one-year deal was a wise course of action.
There would have been more drama if some borderline candidates had been issued QOs, but it was a fairly conservative group this winter. Last year, 12 players received QOs and Martín Pérez and Joc Pederson eventually accepted. But none of this year’s on-the-cusp players got the offer, with each of Teoscar Hernández, Jorge Soler, J.D. Martinez, Rhys Hoskins, Kenta Maeda and Kevin Kiermaier heading into free agency unencumbered.
Each of the players who received and rejected the QO will now net their former club draft pick compensation in the event they sign elsewhere this winter. The value of that compensation will depend upon whether the club received revenue sharing or paid the competitive balance tax in 2023. The signing club would also be subject to draft pick forfeiture and perhaps a reduction of international bonus pool space, with the penalty also dependant on revenue sharing and CBT status.
Rockies Select Four Players To 40-Man Roster
The Rockies announced their 40-man roster moves in advance of today’s Rule 5 deadline, bringing their allotment back up to a full 40 players. Colorado selected the contracts of infielder Adael Amador, outfielder Yanquiel Fernandez, and right-handers Juan Mejia and Angel Chivilli.
There wasn’t much suspense over the first two moves, as Amador and Fernandez are two of the better prospects in all of baseball. Baseball America and MLB Pipeline each rank Amador as the 21st-best minor leaguer in the game, while Fernandez is ranked 47th by BA and 49th by Pipeline. The duo each reached the Double-A level in 2023 but didn’t perform particularly well, though Amador missed a lot of time with a broken right hamate bone. It seems likely that Colorado will start both back at Double-A Hartford to begin the 2024 campaign, but it wouldn’t be a shock if either Amador or Fernandez got a cup of coffee in the majors before the year is out.
Mejia had a combined 5.06 ERA over 58 2/3 combined innings with High-A Spokane and Double-A Hartford in 2023, but as MLB.com’s Thomas Harding wrote this week, Mejia looked quite impressive in Arizona Fall League action. Though Mejia had nine walks over his 8 1/3 innings in the AFL, he also struck out 17 batters, highlighting in rather extreme fashion his career-long trend towards both missing bats and battling control problems. The Rockies felt Mejia’s live arm is worth the protection, so the 23-year-old will now make a 40-man roster for the first time.
The 21-year-old Chivilli ran into some home run issues in Spokane this season, contributing to the 5.61 ERA he posted over 61 combined innings (57 in High-A ball, four at Double-A). Like Mejia, Chivilli has saved some of his best work for the offseason, pitching well in Dominican Winter League action.
White Sox Select Jake Eder, Cristian Mena
The White Sox have selected the contracts of lefty Jake Eder and right-hander Cristian Mena, per a team announcement. Both are now protected from next month’s Rule 5 Draft. Chicago’s 40-man roster is now up to 37 players.
Eder, 25, is one of the organization’s top pitching prospects. The Sox picked up the former fourth-round pick from the Marlins in the deadline swap that sent corner infielder Jake Burger from Chicago to Miami. Eder, in his first season back from Tommy John surgery, pitched to a 3.94 ERA with a 30.6% strikeout rate in 29 1/3 Double-A frames prior to the swap but perhaps began to wear down late in the season after a lengthy layoff from pitching. He walked 15 hitters in 17 1/3 innings with the Sox following the trade and issued another 15 free passes in 17 2/3 innings of Arizona Fall League play.
Despite the shaky finish to the season, there’s little doubting Eder would’ve been selected in the Rule 5 Draft had he remained unprotected. The lefty ranked as baseball’s No. 62 overall prospect at FanGraphs in 2022 after pitching 71 1/3 innings of 1.77 ERA ball as a 22-year-old in Double-A. He’ll either return to Double-A to begin the 2024 season or jump up to Triple-A — and either way that’ll put him within general proximity of reaching the big leagues.
Mena, 20, has had a meteoric rise through the White Sox’ system, splitting the 2023 season between Double-A and Triple-A. After working to a 3.80 ERA across three levels as a 19-year-old in 2022, he posted a combined 4.85 ERA in 133 2/3 innings this year. While the earned run average certainly doesn’t jump out, Mena was four years younger than the average age of his Double-A opposition and nearly seven years younger than his average opponent in Triple-A. Despite that youth and lack of experience, he managed a 26.9% strikeout rate. His 11% walk rate speaks to a need to hone his command, but Mena has a heater that reaches 96 mph and a curveball that Baseball America (who ranks him sixth among Chicago prospects) touts as a plus pitch.
Mariners Designate Mike Ford, Select Zach DeLoach
The Mariners announced that Zach DeLoach‘s contract has been selected, adding the outfielder to the 40-man roster and protecting him from selection in the Rule 5 Draft. To create roster room, Seattle designated first baseman Mike Ford for assignment.
Ford is arbitration-eligible for the first time this offseason, and is projected to earn $1.5MM. It isn’t a huge sum, and Ford had a very solid 123 wRC+ while hitting .228/.323/.475 with 16 home runs over 251 plate appearances for the Mariners this season, but the M’s have seemingly decided that Ford is expendable. Ford isn’t helped by his lack of minor league options, so a DFA was the only route for the Mariners to move him off the 40-man and possibly down to the minors, though today’s move has the feel of an early cut in advance of Friday’s non-tender deadline.
The 31-year-old Ford made his Major League debut with the Yankees in 2019, bursting onto the scene with 12 homers and a .259/.350/.559 slash line over his first 163 PA in the Show. Between that rookie season and his 2023 numbers, Ford has sandwiched some quality production around three far less-production seasons, as he batted .170/.275/.294 over 305 PA from 2020-22, bouncing around to five different clubs in that span (including a prior stint with the Mariners).
Should Ford indeed hit the open market again, he might have trouble landing a guaranteed contract, yet there’s some interesting potential here for a team willing to give him some consistent at-bats. Ford is limited by his out-of-options status and the fact that he can only play first base, but a club looking for some low-cost production from a first baseman can do worse than bringing Ford to Spring Training. Another reunion with the Mariners doesn’t seem out of the question, if at less than a $1.5MM salary.
DeLoach is one of a few interesting Seattle prospects who might be Rule 5 candidates come December, but for now, the outfielder is the only one locked into a spot on the Mariners’ 40-man roster. A second-round pick in the 2020 draft, the 25-year-old DeLoach hit .286/.387/.481 slash line with 23 homers in 623 plate appearances for Triple-A Tacoma last season. The hitter-friendly environment of the Pacific Coast League adds a grain of salt to those numbers, but the added pop answered some scouts’ criticisms that DeLoach hadn’t yet developed enough power at the plate. Left field might be his only ideal spot in the outfield, but DeLoach does seem to have a chance to make his Major League debut at some point in 2024, in at least a reserve capacity.