Michael Lorenzen Reportedly Seeking Two-Year Deal
With spring training fully underway, right-hander Michael Lorenzen remains unsigned and in search of a new club for the upcoming 2024 season. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that the 32-year-old righty has been searching for a two-year contract and is continuing to focus his efforts on landing a multi-year pact.
After a lengthy run as a setup man in the Reds’ bullpen, Lorenzen has signed one-year deals to work as a starter in each of the past two offseasons. He landed with the Angels on a $6.75MM deal in 2022 and pitched for the Tigers on an $8.5MM deal in 2023. After pitching a career-high 153 innings in 2023 and making his first All-Star team, it seems Lorenzen is prioritizing a multi-year pact so as to avoid yet another swift return to the market. That’s only natural, but at this stage of the winter, it’s far from a lock that one will present itself.
[Related: Let’s find a home for Michael Lorenzen]
Lorenzen started 25 games and made four relief appearances last season. He carried a 4.03 ERA through 87 innings into the All-Star break and was named the Tigers’ lone All-Star representative. His second half began with an otherworldly hot streak, and Lorenzen was flipped from Detroit to Philadelphia along the way, scarcely missing a beat early in his Phillies stint following the trade.
From July 6 through Aug. 9, Lorenzen piled up 40 2/3 innings with a 1.11 ERA and strong 31-to-12 K/BB ratio. He capped off his stellar run with an eight-inning, two-run gem against the Marlins and a 124-pitch no-hitter against the Nationals in his first start at Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park. That dropped his season-long ERA to a tidy 3.23, and while Lorenzen’s pedestrian 19.4% strikeout rate and tiny .244 average on balls in play didn’t fully support the extent of his success, he still looked well on his way to a possible multi-year deal in free agency.
His season took a sharp downturn from there. Perhaps wearing down as he pushed into uncharted territory in terms of workload, Lorenzen was rocked for 27 runs over his next 26 1/3 innings. The Phillies moved him to the bullpen in September, and although he finished with a handful of scoreless relief outings, Lorenzen’s 4.18 ERA was a far sight higher than it was at peak levels. His 17.8% strikeout rate was well shy of the league average, while his 7.5% walk rate and 41% grounder rate were closer to par among starters. But Lorenzen’s lack of whiffs, solid-but-not-elite command and susceptibility to home runs caused fielding-independent metrics to cast a far more bearish outlook on his season overall (4.46 FIP, 4.87 SIERA).
Lorenzen and his camp could perhaps make the claim to teams that he wore down or that his late-season struggles were fluky in nature, but teams could surely make similar claims that his torrid run from mid-July to mid-August doesn’t accurately represent his ability either. A two-year deal with a modest bump in AAV has always seemed plausible, though. MLBTR predicted a two-year, $22MM deal back in November. Just last offseason, we saw Ross Stripling ($25MM), Sean Manaea ($25MM), Drew Smyly ($19MM) and Jordan Lyles ($17MM) all sign two-year guarantees at or north of Lorenzen’s 2023 salary level — the first three with opt-outs included.
It’s plenty understandable if Lorenzen entered free agency thinking such a deal generally represented a floor of sorts for him. Perhaps early in the offseason, such offers would’ve been more attainable. Now, it’s increasingly difficult to convince teams to dole out guaranteed money on multi-year deals, particularly for starting pitchers who might not be able to fully build up in the remaining three and a half weeks of camp.
One thing that could yet help Lorenzen find a deal to his liking is the mounting slate of pitching injuries around the league as camps progress. The Red Sox may have lost their marquee offseason pickup, Lucas Giolito, for the season already. Giants fifth starter Tristan Beck won’t throw for eight weeks, and one of their top depth options is dealing with an elbow sprain. The Cardinals and Astros will begin the season with their would-be Opening Day starters on the injured list. The Blue Jays and Marlins are both dealing with possible injuries to notable starters.
Any one of those issues could cause the market for Lorenzen to pick up steam, but the longer he waits to sign, the more likely it is that he’ll need some minor league starts to ramp up before joining a big league rotation. We’re not necessarily to that point on the schedule just yet, but it’s getting close.
Submit Your Questions For This Week’s MLB Trade Rumors Podcast!
On the MLB Trade Rumors podcast, we’ll frequently answer questions from our readers and listeners. With the next episode set for Wednesday, we’re looking for MLBTR’s audience to submit their questions and we’ll pick a few to answer.
Spring Training is in full swing but there are still many notable free agents unsigned and possible trades not yet consummated. If you have a question about a recent transaction, a future transaction or anything else related to the offseason or upcoming season, we’d love to hear from you! You can send your questions to mlbtrpod@gmail.com.
Also, if you want to hear your voice on the podcast, send us your question in audio form and we might play it. iPhone users can find instructions on how to do so here.
In the meantime, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Brandon Dixon Announces Retirement
Infielder Brandon Dixon announced his retirement this evening (on X). The 32-year-old appeared in parts of five major league seasons, including each of the last two years as a member of the Padres.
“Officially retired from baseball. I’m so thankful for all the relationships, support, and experiences over the past 10 years,” Dixon wrote. “It’s been a fun journey, from a kid dreaming of the big leagues to getting to play for my hometown team. Thank you to everyone who was part of it.”
Dixon, a right-handed hitter, entered pro ball in 2013 as a third-round pick of the Dodgers. Before he reached the majors, Los Angeles traded him to the Reds as part of the three-team deal that sent Todd Frazier to the White Sox. Dixon made his debut with Cincinnati in 2018, appearing in 74 contests as a rookie.
The Tigers grabbed him off waivers the following offseason. Dixon had his best year with Detroit in 2019, hitting .248/.290/.435 over a career-high 420 plate appearances. His 15 home runs rather remarkably led the team. The Tigers nevertheless sent him through outright waivers that winter. He very briefly returned to the majors at the end of 2020 before making the jump to Japan.
Dixon spent a season with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. The La Jolla native signed a minor league pact with the Padres upon his return to the affiliated ranks. San Diego called him to the majors at the end of the 2022 campaign and early last year. He hit .204/.240/.323 in 38 games over those two seasons. San Diego ran him through waivers as part of their roster reshuffling at the trade deadline. He finished the year in Triple-A, where he hit .268/.348/.502 through 273 plate appearances.
Over his big league career, Dixon hit .224/.266/.397 with 22 homers and 32 doubles. He spent parts of five seasons at the Triple-A level, where he turned in a robust .286/.349/.518 slash in more than 1100 plate appearances. MLBTR congratulates Dixon on his decade-long run in the professional ranks and wishes him the best in retirement.
Improvements To Our MLB Contract Tracker
Our MLB Contract Tracker is an amazing research tool, full of features and capabilities you can’t get anywhere else. You can filter by player name, team, position, batting handedness, throwing handedness, contract type (MLB deal, minor league deal, extension), number of years, amount of total money, average annual value, type of option, age in the first year of the deal, age in the last year of the deal, service time for those who signed extensions, Super Two status, qualifying offer status, agency at the time of signing, and any date range from 10-5-09 to present. Subscribe to Trade Rumors Front Office today to gain access!
We just finished data entry for the 2009-10 offseason, which was led by Matt Holliday, John Lackey, and Jason Bay. Was anyone around here back then? Throughout the year, MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk and Bryan Grosnick will continue working backward to add more years to the database. Of course, the MLB Contract Tracker is also updated daily as new deals come in. Before you know it, we’ll have Jackson Holliday in there.
For the real contract data nerds, we have also upgraded our service time filter. Now, we have a checkbox for players who signed extensions with zero MLB service:
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Jackie Bradley Jr. “Open” To Continuing Career
Veteran center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. remains “open” to continuing his career, according to a report from Peter Abraham of The Boston Globe. Abraham adds that Bradley has continued to work out throughout the offseason in hopes of returning to the field this spring.
Bradley, 34 in April, signed with the Royals on a minor league pact last spring and managed to earn a spot on the Opening Day roster, though his time in Kansas City ultimately did not go how either side surely hoped it would. While Bradley continued to flash impressive defense in a part-time role with the Royals to open last season, racking up +4 ratings according to both Outs Above Average and Defensive Runs Saved for his work on the outfield grass, he struggled badly at the plate before being released in early June.
In 113 plate appearances for the Royals last year, Bradley slashed a paltry .133/.188/.210 with a 25.7% strikeout rate, a 4.4% walk rate, and just six extra-base hits. That translates to a wRC+ of just 2, meaning Bradley’s offensive performance last year was 98% below that of a league average hitter. There’s reason to believes those dreadful results weren’t entirely earned by Bradley. His BABIP of just .173 last year was more than 100 points below his career .283 mark, and his expected wOBA was more than 60 points below his expected figure.
With that being said, even better fortune at the plate would have been unlikely to turn Bradley into even an average contributor at the plate last year. Even Bradley’s xwOBA of .242 was 12th-lowest among all major league hitters last year with at least 100 plate appearances, and dead last among outfielders who hit that same benchmark. Last year’s disappointing numbers were a continuation of the struggles Bradley has dealt with since departing Boston following the shortened 2020 campaign. Over the past three seasons, Bradley has hit just .176/.238/.275 in 309 games with the Brewers, Blue Jays, and Royals. While his defensive abilities in the outfield have remained impressive during that time, the lack of offense still left Bradley with negative fWAR in each of those years.
At this stage in his career, it would be a major surprise for Bradley to regains the form he showed during his peak seasons with the Red Sox. From 2015 to 2020, the former first-round pick posted a 102 wRC+ while posting elite defensive numbers in center field, allowing him to generate 16.7 fWAR. That figure places him 13th among all outfielders during that stretch, sandwiched between Marcell Ozuna and Starling Marte and ahead of the likes of Andrew McCutchen and Michael Brantley.
Unlikely as it is that Bradley returns to those heights, it would hardly be a surprise if a club in need of outfield depth took a chance on Bradley’s services, though his market would surely be limited to minor league offers. After all, Bradley’s defense remained strong even during his dismal stint with the Royals last year, and the veteran outfielder could serve as a mentor for young players throughout the spring if signed. Abraham even notes that Bradley spent part of his offseason working with young superstar Juan Soto in order to improve the 25-year-old phenom’s glovework in the outfield as he looks to bounce back from a pair of seasons that have seen his defense slip in the eyes of defensive metrics.
Enrique Hernandez Expected To Sign In Coming Days
Free agent utilityman Enrique Hernández is expected to sign within the next two to three days, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (X link). It isn’t clear how many teams remain in the market.
Hernández has drawn reported interest from the Angels this winter. The Halos are presumably one of multiple teams that has touched base with his camp. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal wrote last month that the Angels felt Hernández might prefer to stick with the Dodgers after finishing last season in L.A., although it’s unclear if the Dodgers have made any effort to bring him back.
The 10-year big league veteran split the 2023 campaign between Boston and Los Angeles. Hernández got off to a rough start with the Red Sox, hitting only .222/.279/.320 with six homers across 323 plate appearances. The Sox dealt Hernández to L.A. a week before the trade deadline. He had a better but hardly overwhelming offensive showing in his second stint as a Dodger. Hernández hit .262/.308/.423 over 185 trips to the plate.
After the season, Hernández underwent hernia surgery. That was a relatively minor procedure that isn’t expected to impact him in Spring Training. It’s possible the injury adversely impacted Hernández’s offensive production, but he has been a below-average hitter in four of the last five seasons. Since the start of 2019, he owns a .237/.305/.394 slash in more than 2100 plate appearances.
It remains to be seen if he’ll secure a big league contract for what’ll be his age-32 season. The market hasn’t looked kindly on a few rebound hitters this week. Amed Rosario and Gio Urshela settled for $1.5MM guarantees, while Tim Anderson landed a $5MM pact. Hernández has been a less productive hitter over the last couple seasons than anyone from that group. He has more defensive flexibility with the ability to play anywhere in the outfield, but the Sox’s efforts to make Hernández an everyday shortstop last year didn’t pan out.
Albert Pujols Interested In Future Managerial Role
Former big leaguer Albert Pujols was recently announced as the manager of Leones del Escogido for the upcoming season of the Dominican winter league. Alden González of ESPN relays that Pujols is hoping to manage in the majors someday.
The exploits of Pujols as a player are now the stuff of legend. Now 44 years old, he debuted in 2001 and eventually played parts of 22 seasons. He hit 703 home runs, placing him fourth all-time behind Barry Bonds, Henry Aaron and Babe Ruth. He batted .296 in a career that consisted of more than 3,000 games, winning three MVPs, two World Series rings and many other accolades. He retired after the 2022 season.
Pujols has also shown a lot of interest in various roles for his post-playing career. The deal he signed with the Angels as a free agent included a ten-year personal services provision and it was reported around this time last year that he would be serving as a special assistant for that club. Shortly after that, he also expressed an interest in coaching down the road and then Major League Baseball hired him as a special assistant last summer.
The role with the Leones will allow Pujols to get a taste of life as a skipper for a small sample, as the winter league is shorter than an MLB campaign, currently played with a 50-game regular season. It will be the first step on a journey that could perhaps lead him back to a major league dugout at some point in the future.
Latest On MLB’s Expansion Timeline
With the A’s and Rays nearing resolution on their long-running stadium disputes, expansion could become a more pressing topic for MLB in the second half of the 2020s. Rob Manfred said earlier this month he hoped to have the next couple major league cities agreed upon by the end of his tenure as commissioner. Manfred plans to retire at the conclusion of his term in January 2029.
ESPN’s Jeff Passan writes that while there are no current expansion plans in place, many high-ranking team and league officials consider it inevitable the league will move to 32 franchises. Passan suggests that’s unlikely to occur before the early portion of the 2030s, a timeline that generally aligns with Manfred’s goal of getting the ball rolling before leaving office in five years. There are clear logistical issues — expansion fees, stadium construction, etc. — that’d need to be sorted out between narrowing the field of cities and putting two more MLB teams on the field.
While the league could get a jump on that process, expansion isn’t yet a priority. The A’s are still figuring out where they’ll play between 2025-27. Manfred said this month that MLB also needed to “get our footing on local media a little bit better” before making significant changes. That’s a reference to the uncertain broadcasting revenues facing a number of teams as cord-cutting has threatened the viability of many regional sports networks.
There will also be another round of collective bargaining negotiations before the expansion process kicks into gear. We’re two-fifths of the way through the current CBA, which expires in December 2026. The last round of collective bargaining resulted in a 99-day lockout over the offseason, the first official MLB work stoppage since the strike in 1994-95. Labor issues also delayed the return to play during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. It’s possible the next round of CBA negotiations could be similarly contentious.
Once expansion does become a more immediate concern, various cities could make a push for teams. Passan reports that early planning is to choose one team each from the East and West. According to Passan, Nashville and Salt Lake City have emerged as preliminary frontrunners.
Music City Baseball was established in 2019 with the goal of bringing a franchise to Nashville. Don Mattingly, Tony La Russa, Bruce Bochy, Dave Stewart and Dave Dombrowski are among a host of high-profile people who have been associated with the project.
Salt Lake City’s push didn’t begin in earnest until last April. Big League Utah, a group led by former Utah Jazz owner Gail Miller, began the process of seeking an expansion franchise. SLC is one of three cities — joining Oakland and Sacramento — that is in contention to host the A’s before their planned Vegas stadium opening in 2028. Landing the A’s on a temporary basis would presumably boost their chances of securing a franchise of their own in the future.
Of course, plenty can change in the intervening few seasons. Nothing is anywhere near set in stone. The process hasn’t yet begun, but it could come into focus within the next couple years. MLB has been at 30 teams since adding the Diamondbacks and Devil Rays in 1998, the longest static period since the league first expanded from 16 to 18 teams in 1961. Passan’s column is worth a full read, as he lists a few other cities that have been floated as possibilities and covers a number of challenges that groups could face as they try to secure a new franchise.
Matt Barnes Throws For Scouts
Former Red Sox closer Matt Barnes, who was traded to the Marlins prior to the 2023 season and wound up undergoing season-ending hip surgery in May, threw for big league scouts last week and could land a deal with a team before spring training for most teams commences next week, Alex Speier of the Boston Globe reports. Barnes is still building arm strength but was in the low 90s with his fastball.
An All-Star with the Red Sox in 2021, Barnes has experienced a sharp decline in recent years, at least in part to a hip issue that’s plagued him for some time. The right-hander saved 24 games for the ’21 Sox but had all two dozen in the books by August 4. At that point, Barnes was sporting a pristine 2.25 ERA with a dominant 42% strikeout rate against a strong 6.8% walk rate. He’d pitched like one of the best relievers in baseball, and Boston rewarded him over the summer in the form of a two-year, $18.75MM contract extension that kept him from reaching free agency at season’s end.
Barnes pitched well for the first month of that contract, but things went south quickly thereafter. Over his final 15 appearances, the right-hander was shelled for a 10.13 ERA with significantly worsened strikeout and walk rates (26.7% and 15%). Barnes had walked only 11 hitters and surrendered just four homers through his first 44 innings but doubled that home run total and issued nine more walks in those final 10 1/3 innings.
It was a miserable way to close out the season, but Barnes’ track record was strong enough that a rebound didn’t seem far-fetched. Even with that calamitous finish to the season, his overall numbers from 2017-21 were sound: 3.82 ERA, 38 saves, 76 holds, 34.8% strikeout rate, 11.1% walk rate.
To Barnes’ credit, he rebounded from that finish to at least some extent in 2022, pitching to a 4.31 ERA in 39 2/3 innings. However, his 19.3% strikeout rate was less than half what it had been during his overpowering four-month run in 2021, and his 11.9% walk rate was still a clear red flag. He wound up missing more than two months of that ’22 season due to shoulder inflammation, and over the winter, the Red Sox designated Barnes for assignment and flipped him to the Marlins in exchange for another bounceback bullpen candidate: lefty Richard Bleier.
The trade didn’t work out well for either party. Barnes pitched just 21 1/3 innings of 5.48 ERA ball with Miami, sitting at a career-worst 93.6 mph with his average fastball. His 20.2% strikeout rate was only marginally better than his ugly mark the year prior, and while he cut his walk rate to 10.1%, that was still well north of the league average. Barnes underwent femoral acetabular impingement surgery on his left hip in late July, and the Fish bought out a club option on the right-hander at season’s end.
Barnes spoke with Speier in a full column for the Globe, speaking about the frustration of not being able to live up to his own expectations for himself over the past couple years. “Looking back on it, I’m realizing now that the hip was such a limiting factor in my ability to get into my lower half, subconsciously knowing that it was there,” Barnes told Speier. “The nature of the injury with the hip, it didn’t allow me to get over my front side and truly rotate and create power.”
Time will tell whether Barnes can ever recapture the form he showed from Opening Day through early August in 2021, though with a shoulder injury and notable hip surgery separating present-day Barnes from that peak version, it feels like something of a long shot. But even if Barnes never gets back to fanning more than 40% of his opponents, there’s a middle ground where he can be an effective late-inning reliever. Just about every club in baseball is looking for low-cost, low-risk ways to beef up their bullpens this time of season. Barnes’ track record should hold appeal in that regard, though the ultimate price tag will come down to how he looks in bullpen sessions. Most clubs will likely want to bring him to camp on a non-roster deal, but a 40-man spot doesn’t seem out of the question if he looks promising enough in a workout for clubs.
Follow The NBA Trade Deadline On Hoops Rumors
Trade deadline day has arrived for the NBA, and our sister site Hoops Rumors (@HoopsRumors on Twitter) has all the latest news and rumors for each of the league’s 30 teams! The deadline is set for 2:00pm CT on Thursday.
Luke Adams provided a deadline primer this morning to help readers prepare for today’s action, and he will release his annual recap of all the completed trades this evening.
While it began as a relatively quiet week, three deals were agreed to on Wednesday, and many more significant trades were completed earlier in the season, with James Harden, Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, Immanuel Quickley, Terry Rozier, and Steven Adams among the players on the move.
In total, we’ve seen 11 in-season trades so far during the 2023/24 season. Last year, we saw 12 deals completed on deadline day alone, and this year could be just as action-packed!
Dejounte Murray, Bojan Bogdanovic, Kyle Kuzma, Bruce Brown, Buddy Hield, Miles Bridges, Andrew Wiggins, and Tyus Jones are among the names that have continually popped up in trade rumors. The Sixers have also reportedly talked to the Bulls about six-time All-Star DeMar DeRozan, perhaps the most accomplished player who has a chance to be sent to a new team today.
For the latest updates on those stories and more, check out Hoops Rumors today! Follow us on Facebook and Twitter – @HoopsRumors.