Angels Sign Carlos Estevez
The Angels have continued their early-offseason activity, announcing the signing of reliever Carlos Estévez to a two-year, $13.5MM deal. The former Rockie receives $6.75MM in each of the next two seasons, the team disclosed.
Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic suggested earlier this afternoon the Halos were hoping to add to their late-inning mix. Within a few hours, they’ve finalized an agreement to add a power arm to Phil Nevin’s bullpen. Estévez is among the hardest throwers in the sport, and he’s coming off the best season of what has been an up-and-down MLB career.
Estévez began with a pair of seasons with an ERA north of 5.00. He took a step forward in 2019, working to a 3.75 ERA across 72 frames while striking out an above-average 26.3% of opponents. The native of the Dominican Republic looked like a potential high-leverage arm for the Rockies, but he stumbled to a 7.50 ERA during the abbreviated 2020 campaign thanks to massive home run issues.
The right-hander has gotten the longball in check over the past two seasons and performed at a generally solid level for skipper Bud Black. He worked to a 4.38 mark across 61 2/3 innings in 2021, then posted a career-low 3.47 ERA this past season. He’s struck out opponents at a roughly average clip in both seasons, although his swing-and-miss rate took a step back this year. Estévez generated swinging strikes on only 9% of his offerings in 2022, down almost two percentage points from the year prior and well below his 13.9% personal high in 2019.
Despite the dip in swinging strikes, the Halos will roll the dice on his high-octane arsenal. He averaged a blistering 97.5 MPH on his four-seam fastball, pushing into triple digits on occasion. Estévez has sat in the 97-98 MPH range every year of his major league career, and he’s relied heavily on that heater. He turned to his fastball just over 70% of the time, mixing in a changeup against left-handers and a slider to same-handed opponents.
That slider had excellent results in 2022, helping Estévez stifle right-handed hitters more generally. He held righties to a .204/.292/.306 line through 113 plate appearances. Left-handers only managed a .216/.287/.432 slash themselves, although that success was more built off an unsustainable .222 batting average on balls in play. Estévez had a below-average 19.7% strikeout rate against southpaws, but he punched out an impressive 26.5% of righties.
With his success against right-handers, Estévez should at least profile as a hard-throwing matchup option in the middle innings for Nevin. He’ll join Ryan Tepera and Jimmy Herget as the club’s top right-handed options, while Aaron Loup profiles as their best matchup southpaw. Tepera and Herget have more pedestrian velocity, and Estévez could take over the uncertain ninth inning mix in Orange County. Estévez only has 25 career saves, including just two this past season, but reports this offseason have suggested teams viewed him as a potential closer outside of the league’s most hitter-friendly home ballpark.
Estévez turns 30 later this month, so he was one of the younger free agent relief options available. He’ll strengthen a Halo bullpen that ranked 18th in ERA (3.97) and 22nd in strikeout percentage (22.2%) this past season. It’s certainly possible general manager Perry Minasian and his staff continue to look for ways to strengthen their late-inning mix. They’ve been active in an attempt to snap an eight-year postseason drought. They signed Tyler Anderson to a three-year, $39MM guarantee to bolster the rotation while swinging deals for Gio Urshela and Hunter Renfroe to strengthen the infield and outfield, respectively. Estévez becomes the latest in their pattern of acquisitions — a shorter-term investment for a notable but hardly overwhelming salary to build depth which their recent rosters have lacked.
MLBTR predicted a three-year, $21MM deal for Estévez at the start of the offseason. He lands a salary in that range annually, but the Halos keep their commitment to two seasons. Anaheim’s payroll now sits around $198MM, in the estimation of Roster Resource. That’s already above this past season’s $189MM Opening Day figure, which was a franchise-record outlay. Anaheim is also looking into ways to upgrade the middle infield, so it seems likely they’ll wind up above $200MM by the time the 2023 season rolls around. Their luxury tax commitments are now around $212MM, per Roster Resource, leaving approximately $21MM in breathing room before next year’s base tax threshold.
Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic first reported the Angels and Estévez were in agreement on a deal. Jon Heyman of the New York Post was first to report it was a two-year guarantee worth around $14MM.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Dodgers Officially Re-Sign Clayton Kershaw
The Dodgers announced today that they have re-signed Clayton Kershaw to a one-year deal worth $20MM. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com reports that it will take the form of a $15MM salary and $5MM signing bonus. It’s been almost a month since it was reported that Kershaw was nearing a return to the Dodgers on a one-year deal. For some reason, it took a long time for the paperwork to be taken care of, but the club has now made it official today. Kershaw is represented by Excel Sports Management.
Kershaw, 35 in March, was drafted by the Dodgers and has spent his entire career with the club. He made his debut back in 2008 when he was just 20 years old. Though he posted a 4.26 ERA at that young age, he took a step forward the next season and has been one of the best pitchers in the world ever since. To this point in his career, he has 2,581 innings under his belt with a 2.48 ERA, 27.6% strikeout rate, 6.2% walk rate and 46.7% ground ball rate.
Kershaw is about a decade removed from his peak, when he won three Cy Young awards in four years, grabbing the trophy in 2011, 2013 and 2014. In the five-year stretch from 2011 to 2015, he topped 225 innings four times while never posting an ERA higher than 2.53.
Since that time, injuries have put a damper on the quantity of Kershaw’s work but the quality has remained quite strong. He hasn’t topped 180 innings since 2015 and has been kept under 127 since 2019. But he still generally keeps runs off the board when he’s on the mound. In 2022, he made a couple of trips to the IL but still made 22 starts and posted a 2.28 ERA over 126 1/3 innings, with rate stats roughly in line with his career marks.
Kershaw has signed a couple of extensions with the Dodgers over his time there, with the most recent one going through 2021. A free agent one year ago, it was speculated that Kershaw would be deciding between returning to the Dodgers, signing with the Rangers to be near his Dallas-area home, or retirement. Shortly after the lockout ended, Kershaw returned to Los Angeles on a one-year deal for $17MM plus incentives. This year, it was expected that Kershaw would be deciding between the same three paths. However, he didn’t wait around until the spring this time, with reports emerging shortly after the World Series that he would be coming back to the Dodgers yet again.
Kershaw was one of three starters that the Dodgers saw reach free agency at the end of the 2022 season, with Tyler Anderson and Andrew Heaney also hitting the open market. Walker Buehler is likely to miss the entire campaign after undergoing Tommy John surgery in August. With Kershaw back in the fold, he’ll join Julio Urías, Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May in the rotation. They have some internal candidates for the fifth spot, such as Ryan Pepiot or Michael Grove, but it’s likely they will keep their eye on further additions, especially with some injury question marks hovering around this group. As mentioned, Kershaw hasn’t reached 127 innings since 2019 and May only made six appearances in 2022 after returning from his own Tommy John surgery.
Adding Kershaw’s $20MM to the books bring the club’s payroll for 2023 to $173MM, per Roster Resource. The club has gone well beyond that in recent years but some reporting has suggested they may consider sneaking under the luxury tax in order to reset their status in that department. The competitive balance tax features escalating penalties for teams that go over in consecutive seasons and the Dodgers could potentially stay under the line in 2023 and then go into 2024 as “first-time” payors. The lowest CBT line in the coming season will be $233MM, with Roster Resource calculating the Dodgers to now be at $189MM. That gives them over $40MM of wiggle room, though they will have a number of areas on the roster to address. In addition to the aforementioned rotation situation, they declined a club option on third baseman Justin Turner, non-tendered center fielder Cody Bellinger and also lost shortstop Trea Turner to free agency along with many relievers and role players.
The Dodgers won 111 games in 2022, the highest such total in the lengthy history of the franchise. That led to their ninth National League West division title in the past ten years. However, they could be looking to shake things up after they were dispatched by the Padres in the NLDS. They have a large number of free agents but also a number of prospects at or near the MLB level who could be ready to make the jump. If they do indeed decide to curtail spending this winter, they will have some interesting choices to make in terms of where their devote their resources in the rest of the winter.
KBO League’s SSG Landers Re-Sign Shin-Soo Choo
Longtime Major League outfielder Shin-Soo Choo has re-signed for a third season with the KBO League’s SSG Landers, according to reports out of South Korea (hat tip to MyKBO.net’s Dan Kurtz). Choo will receive 1.7 billion won, or roughly $1.32MM in U.S. dollars. This represents a significant pay cut from Choo’s 2.7 billion won/$2.3MM salary in 2022, but the two sides agreed to the deal to help the Landers stay under the KBO’s new salary cap.
Choo (who turned 40 in July) will be entering his 23rd season in pro baseball. Signing an amateur deal with the Mariners as an 18-year-old Choo had never actually played in the KBO League until he joined SSG Landers in the 2020-21 offseason. Even at his increased age, Choo has still been productive in his home country, hitting .261/.397/.441 with 37 home runs over 1074 plate appearances and 248 games with the Landers since the start of the 2021 season. This run in the KBO was highlighted by the Landers’ triumphant 2022 campaign, which saw the club post a league-best 88-52 record in the regular season and then capture its fifth Korean Series title.
Over 16 seasons of Major League ball, Choo was usually a very productive hitter, posting a .275/.377/.447 slash line over 7157 career PA in the Show with Seattle, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Texas. Choo’s defensive struggles limited his overall value, though he still posted 34 fWAR over his MLB tenure, and his career 123 wRC+ was solidly above average. There was some speculation last winter that Choo might be considering a return to the majors, but no such news publicly surfaced this winter, and Choo will now return to the Landers in search of another championship.
White Sox Sign Mike Clevinger
December 4: Scott Merkin of MLB.com reports that the deal has become official. Clevinger will earn $8MM in 2023, with a $12MM mutual option for the 2024 season that has a $4MM buyout. The White Sox 40-man roster is now at 36.
November 28: Jim Bowden of The Athletic reports that the guarantee is $12MM.
November 27: The White Sox have agreed to a one-year deal with right-hander Mike Clevinger, and the contract will become official once Clevinger passes a physical. Clevinger, represented by ACES, will earn over $8MM in guaranteed money.
After undergoing a Tommy John surgery that sidelined him for the entirety of the 2021 season, Clevinger returned to the Padres in May. He experienced a noticeable drop in velocity, with his fastball averaging 93.5 MPH compared to 95 MPH during the 2019 and 2020 seasons — this likely contributed to a decreased strikeout rate (18.8% in 2022 compared to 27.5% in 2020 and 22.6% in 2019). Nevertheless, Clevinger was able to pitch 114 1/3 regular season innings of 4.33 ERA ball, with a 7.2% walk rate, and 35.2% groundball rate. He also started a pair of playoff games, allowing seven earned runs in 2 2/3 innings.
The White Sox now have a projected staff of Dylan Cease, Lance Lynn, Lucas Giolito, and Michael Kopech, though Kopech is recovering from a left knee strain and right shoulder inflammation. The addition of Clevinger likely closes the book on a potential Johnny Cueto return. Cueto proved invaluable after signing a minor league deal with the Sox, posting a 3.35 ERA in 158 1/3 frames.
Though Clevinger’s post-Tommy John work was uninspiring, some teams may hope further distance from the surgery and/or tweaks to his repertoire may aid him in rediscovering his 2017-2019 form, where the righty pitched 447 2/3 innings with a 2.96 ERA, 28.3% strikeout rate, 9.1% walk rate, and 40.2% groundball rate.
The Padres acquired Clevinger from the Indians in a nine-player trade at the 2020 trade deadline. It’s worth noting that the White Sox were also in the mix for the pitcher they knew so well from the AL Central, though Ken Rosenthal reported at the time that the Sox felt they were something of a “stalking horse,” as Cleveland never intended to move the righty to a division rival. Clevinger made four starts after the deal, but was then scratched for what was at the time called biceps tightness and later revised to an elbow sprain. The Padres brought him back for Game 1 of the NLDS that year, but he was pulled from the start and was on the operating table facing Tommy John surgery the following month.
At the time of the TJ announcement, the Padres also bought out Clevinger’s final two arbitration years for a total of $11.5MM, effectively paying him that amount for what he could contribute in ’22. Though Clevinger remarked in March, “I feel healthier than I have in my entire career,” he sprained his knee shortly thereafter, leading to a May 4th season debut. He hit the IL again after three starts due to a triceps strain.
Over his first ten games, Clevinger was able to miss bats at an above average 24.7% clip. Over his last 11 starts, however, Clevinger punched out only 13.5% of opposing batters. Clevinger’s fastball had a pronounced decline as the season wore on, occasionally working at 95+MPH in some of his earlier starts versus a few sub-93 MPH games in the dog days of summer. Although, this was the first time he had pitched over 42 innings in a season since 2019 and some fatigue was expected.
With a cast of unproven hurlers vying for the fifth starting spot and Kopech recovering from knee surgery, starting pitching was certainly on GM Rick Hahn’s to-do list heading into the offseason. However, Hahn said earlier this month that the team was somewhat limited financially, and the Sox weren’t going beyond the roughly $193MM payroll (a club record) spent last season. Other reports suggested that number might be closer to $180MM, and depending on just how much over $8MM Clevinger is receiving, Roster Resource estimates that the White Sox are already close to that $180MM figure.
As it happens, that $8MM-ish payday for Clevinger comes close to the $8MM that AJ Pollock left on the table by declining his player option for the 2023 season. Pollock wasn’t expected to decline his option, so in that sense, Clevinger’s signing might almost be found money for the front office — and he’ll become an even bigger bargain if he returned to his pre-Tommy John form. MLBTR ranked Clevinger 49th on our list of the winter’s top 50 free agents, and projected him for a one-year, $10MM.
The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal was the first to report that Clevinger and the White Sox had agreed to a deal. MLB Network’s Jon Morosi (Twitter links) reported the terms and length of the contract.
Guardians Sign Meibrys Viloria To Minor League Deal
The Guardians have announced the signing of free agent catcher Meibrys Viloria to a non-roster Minor League deal with an invitation to Spring Training.
Originally signed in 2013 by the Royals, Viloria progressed through Kansas City’s minor league system before jumping from Class-A Advanced to the majors in late 2018 shortly after his 21st birthday with Drew Butera traded and Salvador Perez nursing an injury. He would hit .259/.286/.333 in 29 plate appearances before returning to the minors at the conclusion of the season.
After beginning the 2019 season in Double-A, Viloria returned to the majors in a permanent role, finishing the year with a weak .211/.259/.286 line in 148 plate appearances. He bounced between the major league team and alternate training site during the 2020 season before being designated for assignment (DFA’d) in early 2021 and being outrighted to Triple-A. There he would hit .242/.368/.338, but would not make another appearance with the Royals and was granted free agency after the season.
Viloria joined the Rangers on a minor league deal ahead of the 2022 season. He spent most of the season in Triple-A, hitting .280/.422/.440 while putting up a much weaker .159/.280/.270 at the major league level. Viloria was DFA’d in early November, claimed by the Giants five days later, and DFA’d for the second time in the span of two weeks before electing free agency.
Both of Cleveland’s 2022 catching core, Austin Hedges and Luke Maile, entered free agency after the 2022 season, with Maile recently inking a deal with the Reds. Bo Naylor, the Guardians’ No.5 prospect ranked by MLB.com, is currently penciled in as the starting backstop, but the team has been connected to Sean Murphy and will presumedly fortify the position during the offseason.
With a career .201/.270/.283 line over parts of four seasons at the major league level, Viloria will likely compete for a backup role with the Guardians. However, for a team that values defense, Viloria has thrown out a strong 36% of runners.
Rangers Sign Jacob deGrom To Five-Year Contract
The Rangers have made their huge rotation splash, announcing agreement with Jacob deGrom on a five-year contract. It’s a reported $185MM guarantee, and the deal also includes a full no-trade clause. The VC Sports Group client will make $30MM next season, followed by successive $40MM salaries in 2024-25, $38MM in 2026 and $37MM in 2027.
The contract also contains a conditional option for the 2028 campaign, with salaries dependent on the health of deGrom’s arm over the first four seasons. If the hurler undergoes Tommy John surgery or suffers any elbow or shoulder injury that leads to a 130-day injured list stint within a season or a full calendar year absence over multiple campaigns, a club option would kick in. That’d be valued at $20MM, but it’d jump to $30MM if deGrom posts a top-five Cy Young finish at any point during the deal or tallied a cumulative 625 innings over the next five seasons. It’d go to $37MM if he pitches 725-plus frames or secures three top-five Cy Young finishes.
If deGrom doesn’t suffer the kind of injury that’d trigger the conditional provision, he could vest the 2028 option at $37MM by pitching 160+ innings in ’27 and securing a top-five Cy Young finish. In that case, he’d only need to pass a postseason physical to max out the contract at $222MM over six seasons.
“We are thrilled that Jacob deGrom has decided to become a Texas Ranger,” general manager Chris Young said in the press release. “Over a number of seasons, Jacob has been a standout Major League pitcher, and he gives us a dominant performer at the top of our rotation. One of our primary goals this off-season is to strengthen our starting pitching, and we are adding one of the best.”
It’s the biggest move of the offseason to date and the latest massive free agent strike out of Arlington. The Rangers committed more than a half-billion dollars to the trio of Corey Seager, Marcus Semien and Jon Gray last winter. That was designed to lay the foundation for a full-fledged return to contention in 2023. The Rangers didn’t see their desired steps forward from a win-loss perspective in 2022, largely because of a lackluster rotation behind Gray and Martín Pérez. Texas has suggested they were prepared to attack the top of the market to fortify the biggest weak point on the roster. They’ve done so with a shocking five-year deal for arguably the sport’s best pitcher.
deGrom is one of the most accomplished arms of his generation. While he fell to the ninth round of the 2010 draft and didn’t reach the majors until just shy of his 26th birthday in 2014, he immediately cemented himself as one of the game’s top pitchers. deGrom worked to a 2.69 ERA in his first 22 starts to secure the NL Rookie of the Year award and kick off a career as one of the league’s top hurlers.
The righty posted an ERA between 2.54 and 3.53 in each of the next three seasons, twice receiving down-ballot Cy Young support. Already a borderline ace, he took his game to new heights in 2018. deGrom twirled 217 innings with an MLB-best 1.70 ERA to secure his first Cy Young. The Mets inked him to a $120.5MM extension after that season. He followed up by repeating as the Senior Circuit’s best pitcher, claiming a second Cy Young with a 2.43 mark over 204 innings. He had another dominant season in the abbreviated 2020 campaign, and got off to one of the greatest first halves in history in ’21.
Through his first 15 starts that year, the four-time All-Star posted a microscopic 1.08 ERA while striking out an incredible 45.1% of opposing hitters. He was nagged by some minor health issues throughout the first few months, and that culminated in an injured list stint for forearm tightness right around the All-Star Break. While that wasn’t initially expected to lead to an extended absence, deGrom would wind up missing the remainder of the season. That September, New York president Sandy Alderson said deGrom had been dealing with a low-grade tear in his UCL, an eyebrow-raising assertion considering the right-hander had undergone Tommy John surgery before making his MLB debut. The pitcher refuted that, calling his ligament “perfectly fine.”
After a full offseason, deGrom was expected to return in 2022. Late in Spring Training, he felt some soreness during a between-starts throwing program. He was diagnosed with a stress reaction in his scapula and shut back down, and the injury wound up costing him the first four months of this past season. By the time he returned to the mound in early August, more than a full calendar year had gone by.
With that kind of layoff, one might’ve expected deGrom to show some signs of rust. Instead, he returned as his peak self, immediately dominating opponents yet again. The Stetson product averaged an absurd 98.9 MPH on his fastball and 92.6 MPH on the cutter/slider that serves as his go-to secondary offering. He struck out 42.7% of opponents against a minuscule 3.3% walk percentage. Opposing hitters swung and missed at 21.1% of his total pitches; no other starting pitcher with 50+ innings had a swinging strike rate above 17%. He struck out eight over six innings during his lone playoff start against San Diego.
A three-homer outing in Atlanta to end his season kicked deGrom’s ERA up to 3.08 in his abbreviated season, but there’s little doubt he’s still capable of performing at his top level if healthy. No pitcher on the planet is as dominant as deGrom on a per-start basis. He predictably opted out of the final $32.5MM on his deal with the Mets at the end of the season.
High-upside as this signing can be for the Rangers, there’s certainly plenty of risk in this kind of commitment to a pitcher who lost significant chunks of the past two seasons with arm issues. He’s worked just 162 1/3 innings (including playoffs) since the start of 2021. While deGrom had no control of the prorated season in 2020, he’ll still be expected to shoulder a full rotation workload despite having tossed just 224 1/3 cumulative innings over the last three years.
deGrom turns 35 years old in June. There’s no indication he’s on the verge of any performance regression. Texas’ commitment runs through his age-39 campaign, and there’s the potential for the deal to go sideways if his form tails off later into his 30’s. Now-former teammate Max Scherzer and fellow top free agent Justin Verlander have shown it’s not of the question for a pitcher to remain at peak form as he approaches 40. Neither Scherzer nor Verlander had dealt with the kind of injuries in their mid-30’s that have plagued deGrom, though.
The $185MM guarantee significantly tops MLBTR’s three-year, $135MM prediction at the start of the offseason. It’s the sixth-largest deal for a free agent pitcher in MLB history, trailing those of Gerrit Cole ($324MM), Stephen Strasburg ($245MM), David Price ($217MM), Scherzer ($210MM with the Nationals) and Zack Greinke ($206.5MM). The deal contains a $37MM average annual value that ranks second among any deal in big league history. Only Scherzer’s three-year pact with the Mets — which came out to $43.333MM per season — is higher.
Next year’s $30MM salary will bring Texas’ projected 2023 payroll commitments to around $170MM. That’d be a franchise-record tally for the Rangers, but there’s no indication the organization is planning to curtail spending any time soon. Owner Ray Davis and Young have each indicated there’s room for the club to be active on the open market, and there’s still plenty of work to be done in turning their 68-win roster into a contender in a difficult AL West. Young and skipper Bruce Bochy are each headed into their first full season at the helm, and they’ll expect to break a six-year playoff drought.
deGrom goes to the top of a rotation that brings back Gray and Pérez, who accepted a qualifying offer. The Rangers acquired Jake Odorizzi from the Braves at the start of the offseason, and Dane Dunning is a decent back-of-the-rotation arm. That’s a viable starting five, but the team’s rotation depth is still lacking and they could add another arm from outside the organization. The infield and catcher are in strong shape. Adolis García is the only outfielder who’s guaranteed everyday reps, leaving two spots that could be addressed, and the team figures to add at least one reliever.
The contract contains a $37MM luxury tax hit. The average annual values of a team’s commitments are relevant for competitive balance tax purposes. Signing deGrom brings Texas around $192MM in estimated CBT figures, per Roster Resource, leaving them around $40MM shy of the lowest $233MM threshold.
The Mets will have to rapidly turn the page, bidding farewell to one of the best pitchers in franchise history. New York has also seen Chris Bassitt, Taijuan Walker and Trevor Williams hit free agency. They’re sure to add to a starting staff led by Scherzer and Carlos Carrasco. Free agency offers a pair of remaining aces in Verlander and Carlos Rodón, and the big-spending Mets have previously been tied to both pitchers. Losing deGrom only figures to increase their urgency to bring in one of those two hurlers, and they’ll need to retain or replace free agent center fielder Brandon Nimmo.
New York receives modest compensation for deGrom’s departure. The team made him a qualifying offer at the start of the offseason, which he rejected. As a team that paid the luxury tax in 2022, New York receives the lowest compensation: a pick after the fourth round of next year’s amateur draft. The Rangers neither paid the luxury tax nor received revenue sharing this year. They’ll therefore surrender their second-highest pick in next year’s draft and forfeit $500K in international signing bonus space. Should they sign another qualified free agent this offseason — both Seager and Semien had turned down a QO last winter — they’d be stripped of their third-highest selection.
Jeff Passan of ESPN was first to report deGrom received a $185MM guarantee, and that the deal contained a conditional sixth-year option that could push its value to $222MM. Levi Weaver of the Athletic reported the yearly salary terms. Ronald Blum of the Associated Press reported the details of the 2028 option.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Angels Sign Cesar Valdez To Minor League Contract
The Angels have signed right-hander Cesar Valdez to a minor league deal, ESPN’s Enrique Rojas reports (Twitter link). Valdez receives an invitation to the Angels’ big league Spring Training camp, and he will receive a guaranteed $950K if he makes the active roster.
The veteran righty is back in Anaheim after also signing a minors deal with the Halos last offseason. Valdez only made a single appearance at the MLB level, and was then designated for assignment and subsequently outrighted off the 40-man roster. Pitching much of the season at Triple-A Salt Lake, Valdez had a 3.94 ERA, 21% strikeout rate, and a very strong 3.8% walk rate over 146 1/3 innings, all as a starter.
Though Valdez just got onto that one game with the Angels, it was enough to make it five career MLB seasons for the 37-year-old. He made his debut way back in 2010 with 20 innings for the Diamondbacks, next surfaced in the majors in 2017 with the A’s and Blue Jays, and then didn’t appear in the big leagues again until working out of the Orioles’ bullpen in 2020.
Valdez’s odd career arc (that also includes stops in the Mexican League and the Chinese Professional Baseball League) has seen him move back and forth several times between starter and relief roles, but it would appear he’ll head to the Angels’ camp as rotation depth. Never much of a strikeout pitcher throughout his career, Valdez has relied on grounders to generate outs, and he has a 49.1% groundball rate over his 112 career innings at the Major League level.
Brewers Sign Eddy Alvarez To Minor League Deal
The Brewers have signed infielder Eddy Alvarez to a minor league deal, according to Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The deal includes an invite to major league spring training.
Alvarez, 32, played the past season with the Dodgers, appearing in 14 games. He hit just .160/.154/.160 in 27 plate appearances while appearing at four positions. He went far better at Triple-A, where he slashed .322/.439/.554 with eight home runs in 47 games. He logged most of his time at shortstop and second base in the minors, but also spent a little bit of time in the outfield and at third.
Alvarez actually won a silver medal at the 2014 Winter Olympics in speed skating, but opted to chase his baseball dream soon after and signed for the White Sox as a free agent that year. After coming up through their minor league system, he was purchased by the Marlins in 2019 and made his big league debut in 2020.
Across two seasons for the Marlins, Alvarez hit a combined .188/.287/.287 with a single home run in 142 plate appearances before departing as a free agent at the conclusion of the 2021 season.
Alvarez will compete for a bench spot in Milwaukee during the spring, but in any event will provide the Brewers – who recently traded infielder Kolten Wong to Seattle – with a bit of middle infield depth in 2023.
Diamondbacks To Sign Miguel Castro
9:22pm: The 2024 option would vest at $5MM if Castro appears in 60 games next year and passes a physical at the end of the season, reports Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic (Twitter links). Should Castro finish 40 games next season, it’d become a player option. The deal also contains various incentives based on appearances and games finished that could tack on as much as $2.75MM per season to the deal.
9:00am: The Diamondbacks have agreed to a one-year deal with free-agent righty Miguel Castro, Robert Murray of FanSided reports (via Twitter). The Ballengee Group client will be guaranteed $3.5MM. Jon Heyman of the New York Post adds that the one-year deal also contains incentives to boost that guarantee, as well as an option for the 2024 season.
Castro, 28 next month, is one of the youngest free agents on this year’s market, which surely appealed to the D-backs and other interested parties. However, he’s also coming off an injury-marred season in which a shoulder strain limited him to just 29 innings for the Yankees. That injury sidelined Castro for most of July and for all of August and September, though he did return to toss two innings in October. He added another pair of scoreless frames during the ALCS.
Since making his Major League debut with the Blue Jays as a 20-year-old back in 2015, Castro has been traded multiple times and struggled to find consistent success. The flamethrowing righty, who averaged 97.9 mph on his sinker in 2022, has at times looked brilliant but has also battled high walk rates and been occasionally susceptible to home runs. His 2022 season in the Bronx was solid, as he pitched to a 4.03 ERA with above-average strikeout and ground-ball rates (23.7% and 47.5%, respectively) in his 29 frames. However, Castro walked 11.5% of his opponents in his lone season as a Yankee — the fifth straight year in which he’s logged at least an 11% walk rate.
For all the ups and downs with his command, Castro has logged a composite 3.93 ERA in 350 innings across the past six Major League seasons while pitching for the Orioles, Mets and Yankees. His strikeout rate has trended upward over the past three seasons, in particular, sitting at 26.6% in that time. That’s backed up by an above-average 12.8% swinging-strike rate, and Castro has added a hearty 50.8% grounder rate in that time.
Between his age, velocity, ground-ball rate and ability to miss bats, there’s plenty to like in Castro’s game even if his command never turns a corner. The D-backs will surely hope to curtail his proclivity for free passes, but Castro has pitched for five different Major League teams and only once turned in a walk rate under 10% — and that came in 2016 when he threw just 14 2/3 innings with the Rockies. Listed at a lanky 6’7″ and 205 pounds, Castro’s long levers give him excellent extension on his pitches (77th percentile, per Statcast) which can make his perceived velocity even stronger than his already impressive 98mph average — but maintaining control over those long levers has been a persistent challenge that no team has been able to help him overcome to this point.
Castro is the second addition to the Arizona bullpen in the relatively young offseason, as the Snakes also claimed righty Cole Sulser off waivers from the Marlins late last month. Improving a suspect bullpen has been a stated priority for the D-backs, and Castro will give them a youthful veteran to pair with incumbent options Joe Mantiply, Kyle Nelson, Kevin Ginkel and Mark Melancon, the latter of whom will be seeking a rebound after a frustrating 2022 campaign that saw him lose his grip on the closer’s job in Arizona.
Castro’s $3.5MM guarantee will nudge the Diamondbacks’ projected payroll north of $100MM for what would be just the fourth time in franchise history and the first time since 2019. General manager Mike Hazen recently cast doubt on whether ownership would take payroll back to that 2018-19 level ($131MM in 2018, $124MM in 2019), but he did suggest that a bump over last year’s $90MM Opening Day mark was likely. It stands to reason that the D-backs will remain in the market for further bullpen help, and Hazen has previously spoken about the possibility of finding an offensive upgrade behind the dish and perhaps adding a right-handed bat to the lineup.
Giants Claim Miguel Yajure From Pirates
The Giants announced they’ve claimed right-hander Miguel Yajure off waivers from the Pirates. San Francisco’s 40-man roster count jumps to 38, while Pittsburgh’s tally falls to 38.
Yajure joined the professional ranks as an amateur signee with the Yankees in 2015. A few seasons of strong performance in the low minors put him on the prospect radar by 2019, when he posted a 2.26 ERA across 127 2/3 innings in High-A. Yajure made a brief MLB debut in 2020, when the minor league campaign was canceled by the pandemic. The following offseason, he was one of four players dealt from New York to Pittsburgh for Jameson Taillon.
Pittsburgh viewed the Venezuela native as a possible short-term rotation replacement, but his production stalled out in their organization. Yajure lost a good chunk of the 2021 season to injury and only made four MLB appearances and nine starts at Triple-A. He stayed mostly healthy in 2022 but had a disappointing year. Yajure pitched 12 times (11 in relief) at the big league level, allowing an 8.88 ERA with as many walks as strikeouts through 24 1/3 innings. His production at their top affiliate in Indianapolis wasn’t much better, as he managed only a 6.09 ERA across 54 2/3 frames. He started 14 of his 16 appearances in Triple-A.
While Yajure has yet to find any MLB success, he rated as the #17 prospect in the Pirates system at Baseball America as recently as the start of the 2022 campaign. He’s drawn praise from evaluators for solid control and a balanced four-pitch arsenal that includes a curveball, cutter and changeup. The Giants are active as any team on the waiver wire, and they’ll again turn to that market for a 24-year-old upper level depth option.
San Francisco’s affinity for tinkering at the back of the 40-man roster could make it difficult for Yajure to hold his spot all offseason. He’s out of minor league option years, so he’d have to break camp with the big league club if he’s still on the roster come Opening Day.