Guillermo Heredia Signs With KBO’s SSG Landers
The SSG Landers of the Korea Baseball Organization have announced that they have signed outfielder Guillermo Heredia (hat tip to Dan Kurtz of MyKBO.net). Heredia will earn $900K, with the possibility of earning an additional $100K in performance bonuses.
Heredia, who was projected to make $1.1MM in his final trip through the arbitration process, was non-tendered by the Braves in November. A veteran of parts of seven Major League seasons, Heredia joined Atlanta after the 2020 season, having been designated for assignment by the Mets, and would go on to win a World Series with the club.
Heredia appeared in 74 games (82 plate appearances) with the Braves during the 2022 season. However, he hit a poor .158/.220/.342 with a colossal 39% strikeout rate and below-average 7.3% walk rate. While never a major factor at the plate, with a career .231/.310/.346 line, 20% strikeout rate, and 8.3% walk rate, the right-handed hitter has a history of above-average fielding, having accrued at least five Outs Above Average (OAA) in five of his seven seasons. Nevertheless, during the 2022 season, Heredia earned 0 OAA while posting 1 Defensive Run Saved and a 0.8 Ultimate Zone Rating.
With the Braves hosting an outfield of three-time All-Star Ronald Acuna Jr., reigning Rookie of the Year Michael Harris, Eddie Rosario, and two-time All-Star Marcell Ozuna, Heredia was evidently deemed non-essential by the club. Instead, Heredia, who turns 32 years old in January, will make the transition overseas. He will earn a raise compared to a minor league salary and can explore a return to MLB if his time in South Korea proves fruitful.
Nationals Sign Trevor Williams To Two-Year Deal
TODAY: The Nationals officially announced Williams’ deal.
DECEMBER 9, 9:22am: Williams will be guaranteed a total of $13MM, Stephen J. Nesbitt of The Athletic reports (via Twitter).
8:54am: The Nationals are in agreement on a two-year contract with free-agent righty Trevor Williams, reports Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com (via Twitter). Williams is represented by John Boggs & Associates.
Williams, 31 in April, has spent the past season and a half with the Mets, pitching to a 3.17 ERA in 122 innings while splitting his time between the rotation (12 starts) and bullpen (28 appearances). He’d previously spent the bulk of his career as a starting pitcher, highlighted by a 31-start, 170 2/3-inning season of 3.11 ERA ball with the Pirates back in 2018. However, Williams has yet to consistently sustain that level of success over the course of multiple seasons.
For instance, Williams followed up that strong 2018 season with a 5.38 ERA in 26 starts in 2019, and he endured similar woes in the shortened 2020 season (6.18 ERA, 55 1/3 innings). That said, Williams has been a source of average or better innings in the other four full seasons of his career, dating back to 2017. In all, he owns a career 4.27 ERA and 4.40 FIP in a span of 715 1/3 Major League innings. He’s also coming off a career-high 22.6% strikeout rate and career-low 6.2% walk rate with the Mets in 2022.
Williams works with a traditional starter’s repertoire, leaning primarily on a four-seam fastball and complementing that with a sinker, slider and changeup that were all used at roughly equal levels in 2022 (plus a much more seldom-used curveball). None of those pitches generate huge spin, and none but the slider come with standout whiff rates. Still, Williams regularly excels at limiting hard contact, with above-average marks in exit velocity and hard-hit rate throughout the majority of his career to this point.
Zuckerman suggests that Williams could well end up in the Nationals’ rotation, but that’s not yet set in stone, and a return to the swingman role in which he’s thrived with the division-rival Mets is possible. At present, the Nats have a pair of albatross contracts atop the rotation in Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin, and that pair will be followed by some combination of Josiah Gray, MacKenzie Gore, Cade Cavalli and perhaps Williams. Given Strasburg’s avalanche of recent injury troubles, plus the uncertainty surrounding inexperienced arms like Gore and Cavalli, there ought to be ample rotation innings available even if Williams initially begins the season in the bullpen.
Williams is the second free-agent addition of the winter for the Nats, who also inked corner infielder Jeimer Candelario to a one-year, $5MM contract last month. Washington has a projected payroll of about $106MM next season, though the bulk of that is tied up in their onerous commitments to Strasburg and Corbin. Strasburg is still signed through the 2026 season, while Corbin is signed through 2024.
Mets Re-Sign Brandon Nimmo To Eight-Year Deal
Dec 10: The Mets have officially announced the signing.
Dec 8: The Mets and outfielder Brandon Nimmo are in agreement on a deal that would bring him back to Queens. He will make $162MM over eight years, with a salary of $20.25MM in each season. He will have a no-trade clause. Nimmo is represented by the Boras Corporation.
Nimmo, 30 in March, was considered by most observers to be the clear #2 outfielder on this winter’s free agent market, well behind Aaron Judge but also well ahead of anyone else. Nimmo is nowhere near Judge in terms of power, as he has only 63 home runs in his seven-year career, while Judge hit 62 in 2022 alone.
Despite that lack of power, Nimmo stood out from the rest of the outfielders on the market for a couple of reasons. One is an ability to play center field and a second is his ability to get on base. For his career, which began in 2016, he has a 13.6% walk rate and .385 on-base percentage. Only 17 qualified hitters have a better walk rate in that time while only seven have a better OBP. His career batting line is currently .269/.385/.441, leading to a 134 wRC+, indicating he’s been 34% better than the league average hitter.
That level of production would be welcome at any position but it’s especially valuable in center field, where many teams are looking for upgrades. Nimmo was unsurprisingly popular as a free agent, getting publicly reported interest from the Blue Jays, Giants, Yankees, Rays and Mariners, with others surely interested as well. But it will be the Mets, the franchise that drafted Nimmo 13th overall back in 2011, who will keep him. Even before the offseason truly began, it was reported that the Mets were prioritizing retaining Nimmo and closer Edwin Díaz, and they have now succeeded on both fronts.
The deal is not without its risks, as Nimmo has spent his share of time on the injured list. In his career, he has landed on the IL due to hamstring strains, a collapsed lung, a neck issue and a bruised finger. Due to those various ailments, he has only twice eclipsed 100 games in a season. Most of those injuries are a few years in the past at this point, as Nimmo stayed healthy in the shortened 2020 season, played 92 games in 2021 and then 151 games this year. That means he’s been healthy for the vast majority of the past three seasons. However, this deal has gone well beyond expectations in terms of both length and guarantee. MLBTR predicted a five-year, $110MM deal but Nimmo got three extra years and an extra $52MM, meaning this deal will take him into his age-37 season.
But the Mets are clearly as “win-now” as a team can possibly get and likely won’t worry themselves with the later years of the deal for now. Owner Steve Cohen, who just purchased the club at the end of the 2020 season, has shown he’s willing to blow well past previous spending limits shown by the Mets or anyone else. The Mets had never had an Opening Day payroll that reached $160MM in their pre-Cohen history, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts. But they moved up to $195MM in 2021 and $264MM this past season. Cohen had previously hinted at a $300MM limit for 2022 to The New York Post but that number is well in the rear-view mirror now.
Today’s deals for Nimmo and reliever David Robertson bring the Mets’ payroll for next season to an incredible $322MM, according to the calculations of Roster Resource. In terms of the competitive balance tax, which uses the annual average values of contracts as opposed to just the 2023 salaries, they are at $335MM. That means they are incredibly more than $100MM beyond the lowest CBT threshold of $233MM. There are also three further tiers of luxury tax payments, going up in $20MM increments to finish at $293MM, with the Mets now more than $40MM above that top level.
The CBT also has escalating penalties for going over the line in successive seasons, with the Mets sure to be a second-time payor. They will pay a 30% tax on spending over the first tier, 42% over the second, 75% over the third and 90% over the fourth. That means that they are currently slated to pay a tax of about $67MM, on top of that $322MM payroll. It’s also possible that they’re not done, as Andy Martino of SNY reports that they could still sign Kodai Senga, even after the Nimmo deal.
It seems that we don’t really know how far Cohen and general manager Billy Eppler are willing to go in their pursuits of building the best baseball team possible. The aggressive spending yielded mixed results in 2022, as the club won 101 games, the second-highest win total in franchise history. However, Atlanta snuck in and nudged the Mets aside for the division crown in the National League East, which then led to the Mets falling to the Padres in the first round of the playoffs.
For 2023, the Mets were facing a serious challenge in even repeating that performance. They had a huge free agent class that included Nimmo, Díaz, Jacob deGrom, Taijuan Walker, Chris Bassitt and a whole host of relievers. However, they have pulled out all the stops in trying to ramp back up for another shot next year. deGrom and Walker have signed elsewhere, but the Mets signed Justin Verlander and José Quintana to replace them, in addition to retaining Díaz and Nimmo.
Nimmo will now return to his center field position in Queens, flanked by Starling Marte and Mark Canha. The division will be a fascinating one to watch, as the Phillies have followed up their trip to the World Series by aggressively spending on Walker and Trea Turner, while Atlanta are still loaded with all of their young stars that they have locked into lengthy extensions.
Joel Sherman of The New York Post first reported the contract details (Twitter links 1, 2 and 3).
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Raul Alcantara Signs With KBO’s Doosan Bears
Doosan announced the signing of former Oakland right-hander Raul Alcantara, according to Dan Kurtz of MyKBO. Alcantara pitched for Doosan in 2020, but has spent the last few seasons playing in Japan. He’ll earn an $800K base salary in addition to a $100K signing bonus.
Originally signed by the Red Sox out of the Dominican Republic back in 2009, Alcantara went to Oakland in a late-December trade in 2011. He came up through their system putting up solid numbers as a starter, and got his first opportunity with the big league club in 2016.
He limped to a 7.25 ERA in five starts that year, posting a sound 3.6% walk rate but a well below average 13.6% strikeout rate, while giving up nine home runs in 22 1/3 innings pitched. He’d get another stint in the majors the following year, posting a 7.13 ERA in eight appearances (four starts) over 24 innings, with an 11.1% strikeout and walk rate.
After being released by Oakland in 2018, Alcantara headed to the KBO to first sign with the KT Wiz and then Doosan in 2020. That 2020 campaign brought about a lot of success, as Alcantara threw 198 2/3 innings of 2.54 ERA ball, striking out 22.9% of batters against a 3.8% walk rate. He’d then go to Japan to work as a reliever for Hanshin, tossing 97 2/3 innings over two years for a 3.96 ERA.
The 30-year-old will now return to Korea and look to rediscover the form that made him one of the best starters in the league there in 2020.
White Sox, Victor Reyes Agree To Minor League Deal
The White Sox have agreed to a minor league contract with outfielder Víctor Reyes, tweets Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free-Press. Scott Merkin of MLB.com first reported the sides were discussing a potential non-roster deal with an invite to big league Spring Training earlier this week (Twitter link).
Reyes sticks in the AL Central, where he’s spent the past five years with the Tigers. Previously a member of the Arizona organization, he landed in Detroit as the first pick in the 2017 Rule 5 draft. Reyes managed just a .222/.239/.288 line in 100 games as a rookie, but the rebuilding Detroit club held him on the roster all season to gain his long-term contractual rights. He’d spend four more seasons with the Tigers, typically appearing in around half their MLB games each year.
The 28-year-old has tallied just under 1300 plate appearances at the MLB level. He’s a .264/.294/.379 career hitter, offense that checks in 17 points below league average by measure of wRC+. Reyes has decent bat-to-ball skills and hits for a solid batting average, but he rarely walks or makes much of an impact from a power perspective. It was a similar story in 2022, as the Venezuela native posted a .254/.289/.362 mark through a personal-high 336 trips to the plate.
A solid runner with a strong throwing arm, Reyes has ample experience at all three outfield spots. He has played over 1000 MLB innings in right field, more than 900 frames in center and just under 700 innings in left. Public defensive metrics typically peg him as an average to slightly below-average defender at each spot, but he’s athletic enough to handle any of those positions off the bench.
Reyes’ stint in Detroit came to a close at the end of the season, when he cleared waivers and became a minor league free agent. He’d been projected for a $2.2MM salary if tendered an arbitration contract, making it a fairly easy call for first-year president of baseball operations Scott Harris to move on.
The White Sox have room for improvement at both corner outfield spots. Luis Robert has center field secured, and Eloy Jiménez would be penciled back in left field if he’s not used primarily at designated hitter. Right field is completely up in the air, with rookie Oscar Colás or first baseman/corner outfielder Gavin Sheets looking the favorites for reps. The Sox non-tendered Adam Engel and saw AJ Pollock opt out of the final year of his contract, leaving them with just Robert, Sheets and Jiménez as outfielders on the 40-man roster. They’re sure to add some help later in the offseason, but there’s presently plenty of opportunity for a non-roster invitee like Reyes to earn a bench job in Spring Training.
Rockies, T.J. Zeuch Agree To Minor League Deal
The Rockies are in agreement with right-hander T.J. Zeuch on a minor league contract, reports Robert Murray of FanSided (Twitter link). He’ll get an invite to big league Spring Training.
Zeuch is looking to rebound after a tough 2022 campaign. His big league work consisted of three starts for the Reds, in which he allowed 18 runs across 10 2/3 innings. That marked the fourth consecutive year of some MLB time for the 6’7″ hurler, but it was lightest workload over that stretch. Zeuch has tossed between 10 2/3 and 22 2/3 big league frames four seasons running, posting a 6.49 ERA across 16 outings (10 starts). Despite a solid 50.5% grounder rate, he’s allowed more than two home runs per nine innings with barely more strikeouts than walks.
The 27-year-old has pitched in parts of three years at Triple-A as well. Zeuch owns a 4.71 ERA in 216 career innings at the top minor league level, striking out a below-average 17.2% of batters faced with an average 8.6% walk rate. The sinkerballer typically posts excellent ground-ball numbers against minor league opponents, though, and the ability to keep the ball down has gotten the University of Pittsburgh product opportunities with four organizations.
Zeuch has spent much of his career in the Blue Jays system after entering pro ball as Toronto’s first-round pick in 2016. St. Louis acquired him from the Jays for cash in July 2021, but he never appeared in the majors as a Cardinal. Released this May after a rough start to the year in Triple-A, he hooked on with the Reds via minor league pact and earned his brief big league look with five solid outings in the minors. He was released in September after his trio of tough MLB starts.
The Rockies have now added two former first-round draftees on minor league contracts this week. Colorado agreed to a non-roster deal with former Pirates utilityman Cole Tucker on Wednesday.
Cubs, Eric Stout Agree To Minor League Deal
The Cubs have agreed to terms on a minor league contract with reliever Eric Stout, MLBTR has learned. He’ll receive an invitation to big league Spring Training.
It’s the second straight offseason in which the Chicago-area native has landed with the Cubs on a non-roster deal. He spent the first couple months of this past season in Triple-A Iowa, working to a 3.94 ERA in 29 2/3 innings to earn a big league call in mid-June. That marked his first MLB look since a three-game stint with the 2018 Royals, which had been his only work at that level before this year.
Stout, 29, pitched twice for the Cubs, allowing two runs in 3 2/3 innings. He was designated for assignment within a few days, but his quality Triple-A work was enough to catch the attention of the Pirates. Pittsburgh sent cash to their division rivals to bring him in, and Stout spent the remainder of the season bouncing on and off the active roster. The southpaw worked 18 2/3 MLB innings for the Bucs, allowing 13 runs (12 earned). His 20% strikeout rate was a hair below average, while he walked an elevated 15.8% of batters faced.
At season’s end, Pittsburgh outrighted Stout off their 40-man roster. He declined a minor league assignment and hit free agency, positioning him to head back to Chicago for a second stint. Stout’s coming off a combined 2.93 ERA showing in 43 innings of Triple-A work with an excellent 33.7% strikeout percentage but an alarming 15.5% walk rate.
Brandon Hughes is the only left-handed reliever who currently occupies a spot on Chicago’s 40-man roster. Adding some depth is thus a reasonable offseason target for president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer and his group, and they’ll start with another look at Stout. They’ll probably at least bring in another arm or two on a non-roster deal, and it stands to reason they could look into candidates for a big league contract like Andrew Chafin or Matt Moore as well. Stout still has a minor league option year remaining, so if he cracks the 40-man roster at any point, the Cubs can move him between Chicago and Iowa without putting him on waivers.
Mets Sign David Robertson
DECEMBER 9: New York has officially announced they’ve signed Robertson to a one-year contract.
DECEMBER 8: The Mets and reliever David Robertson are in agreement on a one-year, $10MM deal. There are no options or incentives. Robertson, who is self-represented, has already passed his physical.
Robertson, 38 in April, has a lengthy track record of success as a major league reliever. In nine straight seasons from 2010 to 2018, he threw at least 60 innings while never posting an ERA higher than 3.82. Though his control wasn’t always pinpoint perfect, he never had a strikeout rate lower than 26% in any of those seasons. For reference, this year’s league average for relief pitchers was 23.6%.
Unfortunately, that long stretch of reliability came to an abrupt halt in 2019. After signing a two-year, $23MM deal with the Phillies, he only made seven appearances due to injuries, eventually culminating in Tommy John surgery. That kept him out of action for most of that year and all of 2020. He returned to the mound in 2021, starting with that summer’s Olympics and then joining the Rays for 12 appearances after.
That was enough for the Cubs to take a flier on Robertson for 2022, when he truly got back into form. He tossed 40 1/3 innings for the Cubs with a 2.23 ERA and 30.9% strikeout rate. The walks were on the high side at 11.5%, but they didn’t stop him from being tremendously effective, racking up 14 saves in that time. He was flipped to the Phillies prior to the trade deadline and continued in similar fashion. He threw another 23 1/3 innings for the Phils with a 2.70 ERA and 30.3% strikeout rate. The walks became more of an issue, jumping to a 16.2% rate after the deal, but he still added another six saves and three holds. He was able to add another 7 2/3 innings in the postseason despite straining his calf while celebrating a Bryce Harper home run, posting a 1.17 ERA in that time even though he walked 15.2% of batters faced.
Despite his age and control issues, his season was effective enough that MLBTR predicted he would land a two-year, $16MM deal, or $8MM per season. Instead, Robertson has opted for a slightly higher salary but with the chance to return to free agency again a year from now.
The fact that the Mets were the one to pay him is not a huge surprise. For one thing, they have almost an entire bullpen to rebuild this winter. Edwin Díaz, Adam Ottavino, Seth Lugo, Trevor Williams, Joely Rodriguez and Trevor May all reached free agency at the end of the 2022 season, leaving the club with plenty of holes to fill. They have since re-signed Díaz, traded for Brooks Raley and made a few smaller moves, with Robertson now added into the mix as well.
Secondly, it’s also not surprising to see the Mets putting money down on a player they like because they’ve been doing a lot of that. The news of this deal and Brandon Nimmo‘s re-signing dropped in quick succession, adding to the club’s already huge financial outlay for 2023. Roster Resource currently pegs their payroll for next season at $322MM with a competitive balance tax figure of $335MM. That’s more than $40MM beyond the fourth and highest tier of luxury tax penalization, which is $293MM.
The CBT has escalating penalties for going over the line in successive seasons and the Mets also paid the tax in 2022, making them second-time payors for 2023. They will pay a 30% tax on spending over the first tier, 42% over the second, 75% over the third and 90% over the fourth. That means that they are currently slated to pay a tax of about $67MM, on top of that $322MM payroll. It’s also possible that they’re not done, as Andy Martino of SNY reports that they could still sign Kodai Senga.
For now, the gas pedal is clearly down to the floor for the Mets, as they have spent aggressively in trying to stay competitive for next year. They won 101 games in 2022 but had a huge free agent class that consisted of Nimmo, Díaz, Jacob deGrom, Taijuan Walker, Chris Bassitt and the aforementioned batch of relievers. deGrom and Walker have signed elsewhere, but the Mets signed Justin Verlander and José Quintana to replace them, in addition to retaining Díaz and Nimmo, with Robertson now added into the mix as well. He will likely be in line for setup duty with Díaz in the closer role, but it’s possible that the Mets still have plenty of more surprises up their sleeves to be revealed between now and Opening Day.
Jeff Passan of ESPN first reported that Robertson and the Mets were connecting on a one-year, $10MM deal. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com first reported that Robertson had already passed his physical and the lack of options or incentives.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Rangers Sign Andrew Heaney To Two-Year Deal
Dec. 9: The Rangers have officially announced the signing. Levi Weaver of The Athletic provides some specifics on the contract. Heaney will make $12MM plus incentives in 2023 followed by $13MM plus incentives in 2024. If he opts out after the first year, he’ll collect a $500K payout.
Dec. 6, 7:42pm: Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reports that Heaney will earn $12.5MM in guaranteed money in 2023, with the ability to earn up to $5MM more in performance bonuses.
4:40pm: The Rangers have an agreement with free agent pitcher Andrew Heaney, pending a physical. It will be a two-year, $25MM deal with incentives that could take it up to $37MM. Heaney will be able to opt out of the deal after the first season. Heaney is represented by Icon Sports Management.
Heaney, 32 in June, has long been an enticing hurler due to his incredible ability to rack up strikeouts. Since the start of the 2016 season, his 27.2% strikeout rate is well above average and ranks 21st among all pitchers in the majors in that stretch, minimum 500 innings pitched.
However, despite banking all those Ks, there have also been concerns around Heaney. One is his tendency to get tattooed by the long ball too often. For his career, 16.1% of his fly balls have left the yard, which is certainly on the high side. League wide averages fluctuate in this department as the ball seems to be changing from year to year, but the average in 2022 was 11.4%. Even in the “juiced ball” season of 2019, the rate only got as high as 15.3%, still below Heaney’s career rate. Those home runs are a big reason why he has a career ERA of 4.56 despite all those punchouts. Another knock on Heaney is health, as he’s only once reached 130 innings in a single season. That’s been due to a number of factors, including Tommy John surgery in 2016 and various bouts of elbow inflammation since then.
For 2022, Heaney seemed to take a step forward performance wise, but without completely eliminating those concerning tendencies. The Dodgers signed him to a one-year, $8.5MM deal and then changed his pitch repertoire. His curveball and sinker were eliminated in favor of a new slider to pair with his four-seamer and the occasional changeup. The results were excellent as Heaney struck out an incredible 35.5% of batters faced, well beyond his own track record and second to only Spencer Strider among pitchers with at least 70 innings pitched on the year.
However, injuries were once again a problem, with Heaney making multiple trips to the IL due to shoulder issues throughout the year. In the end, he made 14 starts and two relief appearances, getting to 72 2/3 innings pitched for the whole season, with three more added in the playoffs. The long ball was still present as well, as he allowed 14 homers in that sample, leading to a HR/FB rate of 17.9%. Despite the massive strikeout rate, those home runs bumped his ERA up to 3.10.
Even with those concerns, MLBTR predicted that Heaney would get enough interest to land a three-year, $42MM deal, or $14MM per season. It’s possible that Heaney got a wide variety of creative contracts to address his high upside potential but also the big question marks. Chris Cotillo of MassLive reports that Heaney had nine different offers before agreeing to this Rangers deal, and recent reporting indicated he had three-year offers and was trying to get a fourth. The exact details of those other offers aren’t known, but Heaney has taken a deal with a solid $25MM guarantee, $12.5MM per year, but the possibility to earn much more.
For one thing, the opt-out after 2023 will give him the chance to return to the open market a year from now. If Heaney finally stays healthy and produces the elite results he’s clearly capable of, he could opt out and land himself a much larger contract at that point. There’s also the incentives in the deal, with the specifics not yet known, but that’s another avenue for Heaney to end up doing quite well for himself on the deal.
For the Rangers, this is the latest in a series of moves that has completely remade their rotation. Just about a month ago, their on-paper starting group consisted of Jon Gray and a bunch question marks. Since then, they’ve re-signed Martín Pérez, acquired Jake Odorizzi from Atlanta, signed arguably the best pitcher on the planet in Jacob deGrom and have now added Heaney into the mix. In a way, the Heaney deal is an echo of the deGrom deal, as both pitchers have excellent stuff when healthy but have injury concerns. deGrom is in another league compared to Heaney, but they are similar high-risk upside plays for the Rangers.
The collective moves also are something of a mirror to what the club did a year ago. Tired of rebuilding and looking for a return to contention, the Rangers spent aggressively to land two of the top middle infielders in available in Corey Seager and Marcus Semien. Those two players didn’t immediately turn around the fortunes of the franchise, as the Rangers went 68-94 in 2022. That was largely due to a poor rotation that, as mentioned, they have completely remade in the past month. The club’s starters posted a collective 4.63 ERA that was 25th among the 30 teams in baseball. But with deGrom, Heaney and Odorizzi in the fold, their odds of moving up the list in that category are quite strong.
Financially, this deal pushes the club’s payroll up to $182MM and their competitive balance tax figure up to $204MM, per Roster Resource. The club seems poised to blow well past their previous spending levels, as their highest Opening Day payroll in the past was $165MM back in 2017, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts. It’s unclear how much more spending the club plans to do, but they still have almost $30MM of wiggle room before reaching the $233MM luxury tax threshold for 2023.
Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News first reported the sides were nearing a deal. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported that an agreement was in place, pending a physical. Jon Heyman of The New York Post reported the two-year structure with an opt-out. Joel Sherman of the New York Post first had the $25MM guarantee plus incentives. Alden González of ESPN first added the $37MM post-incentives figure.
KBO’s KT Wiz Re-Sign Anthony Alford, Wes Benjamin
The KT Wiz of the Korea Baseball Organization announced that they have re-signed outfielder Anthony Alford and left-hander Wes Benjamin (hat tip to Dan Kurtz of MyKBO.net.) Alford will make $1.1MM while Benjamin will make $1.3MM.
Alford, 28, was a highly-touted prospect in the Blue Jays’ system given his five-tool potential but he struggled against major league pitching. He got 240 plate appearances with the Jays and Pirates spread across six seasons from 2017 to 2022, striking out in 37.9% of them and producing a tepid overall batting line of .209/.275/.368.
He signed with the Wiz in May of 2022 and flourished, getting into 80 games and hitting .286/.362/.509. He hit 14 home runs and stole five bases in that brief audition, showing enough potential for the club to effectively double his salary as he was paid $577K for 2022.
Benjamin, 29, also joined the Wiz in May, signing for $331K for what remained of the season at that time. He then made 17 starts for the Wiz the rest of the way with a 2.70 ERA over 96 2/3 innings. As a reward for that solid showing, the club has retained him with a big raise for 2023.
Both players are fairly young and could garner interest from MLB clubs down the road if they continue posting solid results in 2023. But for now, they will be looking to help their club in Korea for the next season while pocketing some decent earnings.