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Cubs, Matt Dermody Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Cubs are in agreement with reliever Matt Dermody on a minor league contract, reports MLBTR’s Steve Adams (on Twitter).  The southpaw made one big league appearance with the Cubs in 2020, his most recent MLB action to date.

Dermody spent last season in Japan, suiting up with the Seibu Lions of Nippon Professional Baseball. The Iowa native split the season between the Lions and their minor league affiliate, posting a 5.13 ERA across 33 1/3 innings during his time at Japan’s top level. He only punched out 14.6% of batters faced, somewhat negating a decent 8.6% walk rate.

During his time in affiliated ball, Dermody has fared a bit better at missing bats. He owns a 19.1% strikeout percentage over parts of four Triple-A seasons en route to a 4.12 ERA at the level. Dermody has appeared in parts of three big league campaigns with the Blue Jays and Cubs, working to a 5.13 ERA with an 18.4% strikeout rate but a very stingy 4.4% walk percentage across 26 1/3 career innings.

The 31-year-old has been leveraged situationally over his MLB career, facing nearly as many left-handed batters (52) as right-handers (62). Dermody has held opposing southpaws to a .250/.288/.375 line in that fairly brief action, but he has coughed up a .298/.355/.632 mark against righty swingers. Presumably, he’ll hope to land a similar situational role on a Cubs team that has Brad Wieck, Justin Steele and prospect Brailyn Márquez as lefty relief options on the 40-man roster.

Royals Sign Sam Freeman To Minor League Deal

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The Royals announced this afternoon they’ve signed lefty reliever Sam Freeman to a minor league contract. The club didn’t specify whether the deal included an invitation to big league Spring Training.

Freeman has appeared in parts of nine MLB seasons. The Texas native broke in with the Cardinals in 2012 and spent the next few seasons as a situational option in St. Louis. While Freeman didn’t post particularly impressive strikeout and walk numbers, he was generally successful at inducing ground balls and keeping runs off the board. Between 2013-15, he posted a 2.74 ERA over 88 2/3 frames between the Cardinals and Rangers, racking up grounders on more than half the balls in play against him during that stretch.

The southpaw didn’t fare well in a brief look with the Brewers in 2016, but he posted a 3.34 ERA with a 55.8% grounder rate in 110 1/3 innings for the Braves between 2017-18. Freeman missed a few more bats than he had earlier in his career during that time, but he walked an alarming 12.6% of batters faced. Released by Atalanta shortly before the start of the 2019 season, he logged minimal MLB action with the Angels and Nationals over the next two years.

Freeman underwent Tommy John surgery late in the 2020 campaign, the second time in his career he’d required that procedure. That cost him all of last season, but he’ll try to work his way back to the majors in Kansas City. The 34-year-old averaged a solid 94.1 MPH on his fastball during his most recent action. He owns a 3.58 ERA over 233 2/3 career big league frames, overcoming a lofty 13.3% walk rate thanks to his success keeping the ball on the ground and avoiding the long ball.

Kansas City has stockpiled veteran bullpen depth via a few non-roster pacts in recent weeks. The Royals also added Arodys Vizcaíno and Colten Brewer on respective minors contracts earlier this month. They’re obviously barred from acquiring major league free agents during the course of the lockout, but they’re likely to target additional bullpen arms with more certainty whenever the transactions freeze comes to a close.

Giants, Matt Carasiti Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Giants have agreed to a minor league deal with right-hander Matt Carasiti, per their official transactions log. He’ll give them some bullpen depth in the upper levels of their system heading into the 2022 season.

Carasiti, 30, has appeared in parts of two Major League seasons: the 2016 campaign with the Rockies and the 2019 season with the Mariners. This will be Carasiti’s second stint with the Giants organization, as he’d signed on for the 2020 season on this same type of minor league arrangement. However, the right-hander’s elbow gave out in an early-March appearance during Spring Training (just a week or so prior to the Covid-19 shutdown), and he wound up requiring Tommy John surgery.

Last offseason, Carasiti joined the Red Sox on a minor league pact, but he was still on the mend from that Tommy John procedure when camp opened. He was quickly reassigned to minor league camp and placed on the injured list in Triple-A when the season began. However, he never made it back to the mound to pitch for one of Boston’s minor league affiliates.

Carasiti and the Giants will hope for better health this time around, and if he’s able to match his career output at the Triple-A level, he could well earn a ticket back to the big leagues. A sixth-round pick by the Rockies back in 2012, Carasiti carries a lifetime 3.15 ERA, 26.2% strikeout rate, 9.9% walk rate and 49.4% grounder rate in 100 Triple-A frames. He’s averaged 95.4 mph on his sinker in both of his relatively brief MLB stints, though it remains to be seen if he can recapture that velocity post-Tommy John.

In 25 1/3 Major League innings between Colorado and Seattle, Carasiti has a 7.46 ERA — albeit with a sky-high .429 opponents’ batting average on balls in play. He’ll need to sharpen the shaky command he’s shown in the big leagues (16 walks, three hit batters) if he’s to replicate his minor league success, but given his strong results between Triple-A and Double-A, it’s not hard to see why multiple clubs have been intrigued by bringing him to Spring Training in recent years.

Rangers Sign Nick Tropeano To Minor League Deal

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The Rangers announced this evening they’ve signed Nick Tropeano to a minor league contract with an invitation to big league Spring Training. The right-hander elected minor league free agency at the end of the season after an August minors deal with the Dodgers didn’t result in a big league opportunity.

While Tropeano didn’t suit up in the majors with L.A., he did log some time at the highest level with both the Giants and Mets earlier in the season. He allowed just three runs in eight innings but only punched out two batters in that time. That marked a step back from Tropeano’s quality work in a small sample the year before, when he fanned 28.8% of batters faced and generated swinging strikes at a very strong 14.9% clip across 15 frames with the Pirates.

Tropeano has appeared in seven of the past eight MLB seasons. A starter with the Astros and Angels earlier in his career, he’s come out of the bullpen for 14 of his 15 big league outings since the start of 2019. Tropeano has continued to start a fair number of his minor league appearances, though, so he could serve in either capacity as a depth option with Texas next season. He worked 46 1/3 innings over 17 Triple-A outings (nine starts) last season, posting a 3.69 ERA with a decent 24.4% strikeout percentage but an elevated 11.5% walk rate.

Texas also announced a minor league deal with third baseman Josh Sale. The left-handed hitter was a first-round draftee of the Rays back in 2010, and he ranked among Baseball America’s top 100 overall prospects entering the following season. Sale never made it past the High-A level in the Tampa Bay farm system, as he was released in 2014 after hitting only .238/.332/.381 in the low minors.

Out of professional baseball for the next seven years, Sale returned with the Gastonia Honey Hunters of the independent Atlantic League last season. Now 30 years old, he popped 34 home runs over 498 plate appearances and hit .284/.394/.593 with Gastonia, impressing the Rangers enough to earn a new opportunity in affiliated ball.

Padres, Daniel Camarena Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Padres have re-signed Daniel Camarena to a minor league contract, according to the team’s transactions log at MLB.com. San Diego had outrighted the left-hander off their 40-man roster at the end of the season, at which point he elected minor league free agency.

Camarena originally joined the Friars over the 2019-20 offseason on a minors pact. He’d spent nearly a decade in affiliated ball and was briefly selected onto the Yankees big league roster in July 2019 but had never appeared in an MLB game to that point. After the canceled 2020 minor league season, Camarena began last season with Triple-A El Paso.

While he would spend the majority of the season at the minors’ top level, Camarena did get into his first six MLB games last year. He was selected onto the big league roster in June and worked 9 1/3 innings of twelve-run ball. Clearly, he didn’t get the results he’d desired on the mound, but he did provide fans one of the most memorable moments of the season. On July 8, Camarena hit a grand slam off Max Scherzer in his second career at-bat, turning a 96.5 MPH fastball from one of the sport’s best pitchers around 416 feet.

Of course, the Padres primary interest in the 29-year-old is in his arm. Camarena posted a 4.75 ERA across 83 1/3 innings in a hitter-friendly environment with El Paso last year. The San Diego native owns a 5.32 mark in parts of five campaigns at that level. His 18.8% strikeout rate is below-average, but Camarena’s 7.7% walk percentage is solid. He’ll serve as a long relief or depth rotation option for his hometown club again in 2022.

Cubs, Eric Yardley Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Cubs have agreed to a minor league pact with free-agent right-hander Eric Yardley, per the team’s official transactions log. The former Padres and Brewers hurler, a client of CAA Baseball, was placed on outright waivers in late October and opted to become a minor league free agent after going unclaimed.

Yardley, 31, is a submariner with a massive ground-ball rate. He had some success in fairly brief stints with the Padres and Brewers in 2019-20 before being roughed up with Milwaukee this past season. In 35 innings from 2019-20, Yardley notched a 1.80 ERA (with a much larger 4.13 SIERA) and a sky-high 62.3% grounder rate. His 17.4% strikeout rate in that stretch was well below the league average, however, and Yardley’s 8.7% walk rate was solid but unspectacular.

In 2021, however, Yardley’s 87 mph sinker and 73 mph slider weren’t fooling opponents. His 3.8% swinging-strike rate was the lowest mark of any pitcher in MLB with at least 10 innings thrown, as was his 5.6% strikeout rate. Yardley still recorded a huge 58.6% ground-ball rate in 18 2/3 innings, but he also allowed three homers (1.45 HR/9) and allowed more free bases (ten walks, three hit batters) than strikeouts recorded (five).

All but three of Yardley’s 507 professional appearances have come in relief, so he’ll give the Cubs some bullpen depth to stash in Triple-A Iowa if he doesn’t win a roster spot this spring. He’s spent parts of five prior seasons at the Triple-A level, pitching to a 3.17 ERA in 184 1/3 innings with a 17.8% strikeout rate, a 5.7% walk rate and an excellent 60% ground-ball rate. Yardley has a pair of minor league options remaining, so if the Cubs add him to the big league roster at any point, they’ll be able to shuttle him between Iowa and Chicago without needing to pass him through waivers.

Angels, Daniel Ponce De Leon Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Angels have agreed to a minor league contract with right-hander Daniel Ponce de Leon, per the team’s official transactions log. Because the former Cardinals swingman was released in September and did not return to a big league roster before season’s end, he qualified as a minor league free agent who can sign during the lockout. Ponce de Leon is repped by Paragon Sports.

Now 30 years old, Ponce de Leon had a promising start to his big league career, turning in a 3.31 ERA with a 24.8% strikeout rate, 11.6% walk rate and 40.7% ground-ball rate through his first 81 2/3 frames with the Cards from 2018-19. The free passes were a bit too frequent, but Ponce de Leon combated that trend with a penchant for inducing weak contact (87.2 mph exit velocity and 27.6% hard-hit rate, via Statcast).

Things took a turn for the worse in 2020, however. Ponce de Leon saw a big uptick in strikeouts (31.5%) but also saw his walk rate balloon to 14%. He was also torched for eight home runs in 32 2/3 innings that season — the same combined number he’d yielded through his first 81 2/3 career innings. He was unable to right the ship in 2021, as the pronounced increase in hard-hit balls by his opponents continued — all while his strikeout rate plummeted to a career-worst 15.4%.

All told, Ponce de Leon has followed up that promising 2018-19 showing with 66 innings of 5.59 ERA ball. He’s fanned 22.9% of opponents against a 14% walk rate and allowed 1.77 homers per nine innings pitched across the past two seasons. The right-hander’s average fastball still clocks in at 93.4 mph — the same mark at which it’s landed in each of his four MLB seasons — and he has a sterling track record in Triple-A. Through 218 2/3 innings at that level, Ponce de Leon carries a 2.39 ERA with a 230-to-114 K/BB ratio. Free passes have always been something of an issue, but he’ll give the Angels some depth both in the rotation and in the bullpen.

With the Angels, Ponce de Leon won’t be considered a candidate to crack the rotation unless there are multiple injuries that decimate the team’s depth. He’s behind Shohei Ohtani, Noah Syndergaard, Patrick Sandoval, Michael Lorenzen, Jose Suarez, Jaime Barria, Reid Detmers, Griffin Canning and several other starting candidates on the depth chart. That said, it’s certainly possible that with a strong showing this spring, he could crack the roster as a long reliever/swingman — similar to the role he held for the past four seasons in St. Louis. He’s out of minor league options, so if Ponce de Leon is added to the 40-man roster at any point, he’d need to be exposed to waivers before he could potentially be sent back to Triple-A.

Diamondbacks Sign Juan Centeno To Minor League Deal

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The D-backs have signed veteran catcher Juan Centeno to a minor league contract for the 2022 season, per an announcement from their Triple-A affiliate, the Reno Aces (Twitter link). The MAS+ client will give Arizona some additional depth in the upper minors this season. Centeno spent the 2021 season with the Tigers’ Triple-A club but was never added to the big league roster, making him a minor league free agent who is eligible to sign during the ongoing lockout.

Centeno, 32, has played in parts of seven Major League seasons, most recently logging time with the 2019 Red Sox. He’s a career .223/.278/.323 hitter in 373 trips to the plate at the big league level, although the only time he’s seen much in the way of significant MLB exposure was with the Twins back in 2016. That season saw Centeno log 192 plate appearances while slashing a respectable .261/.312/.392 as the most oft-used backup to Kurt Suzuki. In addition to his time with the Twins and Red Sox, Centeno has seen brief stints with the Mets, Brewers, Astros and Rangers.

While Centeno’s MLB experience is fairly limited, he’s no stranger to Triple-A ball, where he’s spent parts of eight seasons since being selected by the Mets in the 32nd round of the 2007 draft. A career .278/.328/.353 hitter at that level, he’ll give the D-backs some experience to draw upon if a need arises. Centeno also possesses a career 35% caught-stealing rate (big leagues and minors combined), though it’s just 13% in his relatively tiny sample of MLB work.

Even before adding Centeno, the D-backs already had a fair bit of catching depth on the roster and slated to head to camp on non-roster deals. Carson Kelly figures to again shoulder the bulk of the workload behind the plate, while Daulton Varsho could split time between center field and catcher again in 2022. The Snakes also have 24-year-old Jose Herrera (25 in February) on the cusp of the big leagues after he delivered a .258/.364/.422 slash between Double-A and Triple-A in 2021. Additionally, the club inked Juan Graterol — another journeyman in the Centeno mold — to a minor league deal with a Spring Training invite back in November.

Royals Sign Colten Brewer To Minor League Deal

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The Royals have signed righty Colten Brewer to a minor league contract, per a club announcement. Presumably, he’ll head to Major League Spring Training as a non-roster invitee whenever the lockout draws to a close. Brewer was outrighted off the Red Sox’ 40-man roster in June and was not added back prior to the end of the season. That allowed him to become a minor league free agent at season’s end (and thus allowed him to sign during the current Major League transaction freeze).

Brewer, 29, has spent the past three seasons in Boston, logging a combined 81 1/3 innings of 4.98 ERA ball with a 20.3% strikeout rate, a 13.3% walk rate and a 50.4% ground-ball rate. He was a solid and oft-used member of the Boston bullpen in 2019 (4.12 ERA, 54 2/3 innings) but has since been clobbered for a 6.75 ERA in 26 2/3 innings. He appeared in just one game with the Sox in the 2021 season, allowing four runs in a lone inning before being designated for assignment and clearing outright waivers.

While Brewer hasn’t had extensive MLB success, it’s easy enough to see why a team might be intrigued by a no-risk flier on the righty. He’s averaged nearly 94 mph on his go-to cutter over the past few seasons, shown strong spin rates on his breaking ball and boasted that well above-average grounder rate. For the Royals, in particular, that affinity for grounders is surely appealing; Kansas City has talented infield defenders such as Nicky Lopez, Whit Merrifield and Adalberto Mondesi already in the big leagues, with top prospects Bobby Witt Jr. and Nick Pratto expected to debut in 2022. They’re known more for their bats than their gloves, but both Witt and Pratto are well regarded defenders in addition to their prodigious potential at the dish.

Bullpen help figures to be one of the main priorities for the Royals post-lockout. President of baseball operations Dayton Moore spoke in November of building a “championship-caliber bullpen,” and while Brewer is little more than depth for the time being, most of the game’s best bullpens have unearthed a hidden gem or two on just this type of non-guaranteed deal.

Stockpiling bullpen options is only natural, and the Royals, who have also added former Braves closer Arodys Vizcaino in recent weeks, figure to take a few dice rolls of this nature in addition to pursuing some more notable veterans — once that is permitted. At present, each of Josh Staumont, Scott Barlow, Jake Brentz and perhaps Domingo Tapia has a bullpen job locked down, but there should be plenty of competition to round out the remainder of the relief corps.

NPB’s Yokohama DeNA BayStars Re-Sign Michael Peoples

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The Yokohama DeNA BayStars have re-signed right-hander Michael Peoples to a new contract for the 2022 season, the team announced.  This will be Peoples’ third season pitching with the BayStars.

Originally a 14th-round pick in the 2012 draft, Peoples posted a 4.16 ERA and a 17.3% strikeout rate over eight seasons and 779 2/3 innings in Cleveland’s farm system.  Working primarily (126 of 166 games) as a starter, Peoples saw action at the Triple-A level over the last four of his seasons in affiliated ball, but never got the call to the majors.  Injuries played a role, as Peoples was limited to only 133 1/3 total innings in 2017-18 and kept him from a full Triple-A season until 2019.

Over his first two seasons in Japan, Peoples spent time with both the BayStars’ NPB team and its minor league affiliate.  The 30-year-old righty has a 4.55 ERA over 85 innings with Yokohama.  Tyler Austin, Edwin Escobar, Fernando Romero, and Neftali Soto are some of the former MLB players joining Peoples as the non-Japanese contingent in the BayStars’ spring camp.

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