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Nelson Cruz To Retire

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Nelson Cruz revealed on the Adam Jones Podcast that he is planning to retire from playing after an upcoming stint in the Dominican Winter League.

Nelson Cruz | Thomas B. Shea-USA TODAY SportsCruz, now 43, was something of a late bloomer but still went on to have an incredibly long and productive career in the big leagues. He didn’t fully establish himself as an everyday big league player until 2009. That was technically his “age-28 season”, but he turned 29 on July 1, just after the standard June 30 cutoff for such distinctions. He had some limited looks in the big leagues with the Brewers and Rangers from 2005 to 2008 but that 2009 season saw him bust out with 33 home runs and 20 stolen bases for Texas.

He would follow that with 22 and 29 home runs in the next two years, helping the Rangers reach the World Series in each campaign, though they ultimate lost on both occasions. He continued serving as a potent slugger for a time but that was put on pause when he was connected to the Biogenesis performance-enhancing drugs scandal, receiving a 50-game suspension in August of 2013.

He reached free agency after that campaign and the Rangers gave him a qualifying offer of over $14MM, which he turned down. The draft pick forfeiture tied to that QO and his PED situation led to him lingering on the open market until late February, eventually signing with the Orioles for one year and $8MM, well below the QO he turned down.

He had a monster year for the O’s in 2014, launching 40 home runs and helping that club reach the American League Championship Series. The O’s then gave him a $15.3MM qualifying offer, as players were still allowed to receive multiple QOs at that time. The limit of one per career did not come into place until the 2017-2021 Collective Bargaining Agreement. Cruz turned the QO down again but fared far better in this trip to free agency, landing a four-year, $57MM deal with the Mariners.

Though he had been an outfielder earlier in his career, he slid more into a full-time designated hitter role over the course of that deal with Seattle. The club likely didn’t mind as he continued mashing, with 163 home runs in that four-year span. He then continued to produce in a similar fashion after joining the Twins, launching 41 more homers in 2019 then 16 in the shortened 2020 season.

He was still crushing baseballs through the first half of 2021, but his production slid after a midseason trade from the Twins to the Rays. He signed one-year deals with the Nationals and Padres for the past two seasons but his offensive production slid to below par. Since he was into his 40s and limited to DH duties only, it became tougher to roster him and the Padres released him in July.

Cruz retires having played in 2,055 regular season games, hitting 464 home runs in that time. His finishes with a batting line of .274/.343/.513, which translates into a wRC+ of 128, indicating he was 28% better than the league average hitter. He made seven All-Star teams, won four Silver Sluggers, a Roberto Clemente Award and various other honors. He represented the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic on four separate occasions, winning the 2013 tournament. His Baseball Reference page indicates he earned over $140MM in his career. We at MLB Trade Rumors salute Cruz for his many accomplishments and wish him the best of luck for whatever awaits him in his post-playing days.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Nationals Decline Club Option For Victor Robles

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The Nationals announced that they have declined their 2024 club option on Victor Robles. The outfielder is not a free agent as he has less than six years of service time and the club could decide to tender him an arbitration contract for next year.

Robles, now 26, avoided arbitration with the Nats last offseason. He agreed to a salary of $2.325MM while granting the club a 2024 option valued at $3.3MM. He spent most of 2023 on the injured list due to back spasms, only getting into 36 games.

After a mostly lost season, it’s understandable that the Nats didn’t want to pick up that option and give him a raise of almost $1MM. But he remains on the roster and could be retained for 2024 via arbitration. The projections from MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz pegged Robles at $2.7MM for next year, making it possible the Nats could keep Robles but at a lesser price point than the option they declined today. The non-tender deadline is November 17, so the Nats have a couple of weeks to decide if they want to keep Robles for another year, work out a trade or non-tender him.

Though he was once considered one of the top prospects in the league, he hasn’t yet established himself at the major league level. His speed and defense give him a solid floor but he has hit just .238/.312/.360 in 1,801 plate appearances at the major league level dating back to 2017.

Nationals Hire Gerardo Parra, Ricky Gutierrez As Coaches

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With a number of vacancies to fill on their coaching staff, the Nationals will fill two of those spots with Gerardo Parra as the new first base coach and Ricky Gutierrez as the new third base coach, Andrew Golden of the Washington Post reports (via X).  Parra and Gutierrez will respectively take over from Eric Young Jr. and Gary DiSarcina, as the Nats parted ways with both base coaches following the season.

This is the first coaching job for the 36-year-old Parra, who has spent the better part of the last two seasons as a special assistant to Nationals GM Mike Rizzo.  2021 was the final season of Parra’s 12-year Major League career, and he sandwiched two seasons with the Nats around a stint in Japan with the Yomiuri Giants in 2020.

Parra enjoyed a number of highlights during his lengthy career, including two Gold Gloves when playing for the Diamondbacks from 2009-14.  However, Parra’s most famous broadly famous moments came with Washington in 2019, as his use of “Baby Shark” as his walkup song made him a viral sensation.  Parra’s arrival with the Nationals after a May 2019 trade with the Giants was also considered a chief turning point in the Nats’ season, as Parra’s clubhouse leadership and contributions as an outfield regular helped get a then-struggling Washington team on track.  The result was the Nationals’ first World Series championship, cementing Parra’s position as a fan favorite in the District for life.

The 53-year-old Gutierrez also has 12 seasons of Major League playing time on his resume, suiting up for six different teams from 1993-2004.  Post-playing career, Gutierrez worked with the Reds’ player development department for five years and was the manager of their Double-A affiliate in 2021.

Gutierrez moved on from that job to join the Nationals prior to the 2022 season, first working as a Latin American scout and in a special assistant’s role, and he was part of the MLB team’s coaching staff in 2023 as a run prevention coordinator.  That somewhat unique title meant that Gutierrez was focusing on improving the Nats’ defense, and Gutierrez (himself a former shortstop) in particular worked with CJ Abrams and Luis Garcia in the middle infield.

Kyle Finnegan To Remain Nationals' Closer In 2024

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  • Nationals right-hander Kyle Finnegan figures to reprise his role as the club’s closer in 2024, as noted by MASN’s Mark Zuckerman. Zuckerman suggests that the club hopes Finnegan will continue performing with the club as a late-inning option out of the bullpen into 2025, when they hope to return to contention. That being said, Zuckerman also suggests that, in the event the Nationals are out of the race next summer and Finnegan is pitching well, the club will once again consider moving Finnegan, as they did prior to the trade deadline earlier this year. Of course, no deal came together then, and Finnegan struggled down the stretch this season with a 5.18 ERA and 5.52 FIP in 24 1/3 innings in August and September. That being said, Finnegan entered the month of August with an ERA of 3.00, leaving him with solid overall season numbers including a 3.76 ERA (115 ERA+) and a 21.9% strikeout rate in 67 appearances.

Nationals Outright Blake Rutherford, Michael Chavis

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The Nationals have taken a trio of players off the 40-man roster. Infielder Michael Chavis, outfielder Blake Rutherford and reliever Hobie Harris all cleared outright waivers, according to Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com (X link). Rutherford and Chavis have elected minor league free agency, as is their right as players who have been outrighted multiple times in their careers.

Chavis signed a minor league pact with the Nats last offseason. He made the Opening Day roster and ultimately in 48 games as a depth infielder. Over 96 plate appearances, the former highly-regarded Red Sox prospect hit .242/.281/.341 with a pair of home runs. He struck out at a 34.4% clip.

The 28-year-old has appeared in parts of five seasons at the highest level. He logged 129 games with the Pirates a year ago, his heaviest workload to date. Chavis is a career .238/.283/.401 hitter in a little under 1200 trips to the dish. He can play any of first, second or third base. He would have been eligible for arbitration had the Nats kept him on the roster. Now that he’s back on the open market, he could find minor league interest this winter.

Rutherford is a former Yankees first-round draftee who reached the big leagues this past season. The lefty-swinging outfielder had hit .336/.393/.571 in 74 games between Washington’s top two affiliates after singing an offseason minor league deal. The 26-year-old was selected to the majors for the first time in early August. He got into 16 games, hitting .171/.194/.171 across 36 plate appearances.

Harris is also a one-time Yankee draft choice who debuted with Washington in 2023. The 30-year-old righty pitched in 16 games, allowing 12 runs (11 earned) through 19 1/3 innings. He walked 13 while striking out nine. Harris had a 5.57 ERA while striking out 15.2% of batters faced across 32 1/3 frames at Triple-A Rochester. This is his first career outright, but he has sufficient minor league service time to become a free agent at the start of the offseason.

Washington needed to clear three 40-man spots within five days of the end of the World Series to clear space for players returning from the 60-day injured list. They’ll go into the winter with the roster at capacity.

21 Players Elect Free Agency

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With the offseason quickly approaching, a number of players elect minor league free agency on a regular basis. Separate from MLB free agents, who reach free agency five days after the World Series by accumulating six years of service time in the big leagues, eligible minor league players can begin electing free agency as soon as the regular season comes to a close. Each of these players were outrighted off of their organization’s 40-man roster at some point during the season and either have been outrighted previously in their career or have the service time necessary to reach free agency since they were not added back to their former club’s rosters. For these players, reaching free agency is the expected outcome, and there will surely be more in the coming weeks. Here at MLBTR, we’ll provide occasional updates as players continue to elect minor league free agency.

Here is the next batch, courtesy of the transaction tracker at MiLB.com:

Catchers

Infielders

Outfielders

Pitchers

Nationals Hire Brad Ciolek As Sr. Director Of Amateur Scouting

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The Talk Nats blog also reported that amateur scout Reed Dunn is close to joining the organization, and Ciolek and Dunn are just two of several new hires within a significantly reshaped player development system.  President of baseball operations Mike Rizzo has been looking to upgrade how the Nationals identify and develop young talent, as the latest step in the team’s rebuilding process.  D.C. made some progress with the big league roster in 2023, but with contention still probably at least one more years away, figuring out how to add more quality prospects to the pipeline is of major importance.  Ciolek has plenty of experience on this front, as he contributed to the Orioles’ own rebuild, and the deep core of prospects that now has the O’s in great shape to contend for the next decade.

The Nationals have hired Brad Ciolek as their new senior director of amateur scouting, as initially reported by The Athletic’s Keith Law (X link).  Andrew Golden of the Washington Post was the first to report Ciolek’s specific new title, and he’ll work under another new hire in scouting director Danny Haas.  Both Hass and Ciolek worked together in the Orioles’ front office from 2012-19, with Ciolek only just leaving Baltimore after acting as the director of draft operations.

The Talk Nats blog also reported that amateur scout Reed Dunn is close to joining the organization, and Ciolek and Dunn are just two of several new hires within a significantly reshaped player development system.  President of baseball operations Mike Rizzo has been looking to upgrade how the Nationals identify and develop young talent, as the latest step in the team’s rebuilding process.  D.C. made some progress with the big league roster in 2023, but with contention still probably at least one more years away, figuring out how to add more quality prospects to the pipeline is of major importance.  Ciolek has plenty of experience on this front, as he contributed to the Orioles’ own rebuild, and the deep core of prospects that now has the O’s in great shape to contend for the next decade.

Nationals To Retain Jim Hickey, Darnell Coles

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  • While the Nationals recently parted ways with several of their coaches, Andrew Golden of the Washington Post reports that at least two familiar faces will return to manager Dave Martinez’s staff next year: pitching coach Jim Hickey and hitting coach Darnell Coles. Golden notes that Martinez himself advocated for Hickey’s return in particular, and that Hickey’s work with the organization’s many young pitchers drew praise throughout the organization. Coles has coached in the majors since 2014, with stints as hitting coach in Milwaukee and Arizona before joining Washington’s staff in 2021. Hickey’s professional coaching career began in 1996, and his first big league role came in 2004 with the Astros. He has since acted as pitching coach for the Rays and Cubs before joining the Nationals following the 2020 season.

Nationals Part Ways With Four Coaches

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The Nationals have informed bench coach Tim Bogar, third base coach Gary DiSarcina, assistant hitting coach Pat Roessler that their contracts will not be renewed in 2024, per Britt Ghiroli of The Athletic, who also reports that first base coach Eric Young Jr. will not be returning to the club next season. The changes to the big league coaching staff come on the heels of the club significantly overhauling their front office and minor league coaching staffs earlier this month. Despite the many changes in personnel, both manager Dave Martinez and president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo will return in 2024 after receiving multi-year extensions midseason.

The changes come on the heels of another difficult season in D.C. The club took some steps forward with solid seasons from Josiah Gray, MacKenzie Gore, and Jake Irvin in the rotation with the likes of Lane Thomas, Stone Garrett, and CJ Abrams providing hope for the future on offense, but the team still has a long way to go before it can hope to return to contention. While the club’s 71-91 record in 2023 was their best season by winning percentage since the club’s unlikely World Series championship back in 2019 and certainly an improvement over a 107-loss 2022, it still left the club to finish last in the NL East for the third consecutive season, a whopping 33 games behind the division-leading Braves and 13 games out of a playoff spot.

Bogar, 56, began his lengthy coaching career throughout the major and minor leagues back in 2004. His first big league opportunity came as a coaching assistant to then-Rays manager Joe Maddon in 2008, and he has since coached at the major league level for the Red Sox, Rangers, and Mariners in addition to the Nationals, including a stint as interim manager in Texas. Bogar also served as a special assistant in the Angels front office during the 2015 season.

DiSarcina, 55, has been with the Nationals as third base coach for two seasons. Prior to arriving in Washington, he served as bench and third base coach for the Mets, bench coach for the Red Sox, and third base and first base coach for the Angels throughout his major league coaching career, which began in 2014. Prior to his time in the big league dugout, he served as a manager in the minor leagues and special assistant in the Angels’ front office.

Roessler, 63, has been the club’s assistant hitting coach since 2020. Prior to joining the Nationals, he served as assistant hitting coach with the Mets from 2015-2017 before being promoted to hitting coach in 2018. He also acted as hitting coach for the Expos during the 2000 and 2001 seasons with stints in the White Sox, Yankees, Pirates, and Astros organizations in various roles throughout his lengthy baseball career, which began in 1988.

Young, 38, began working as first base coach in Washington prior to the 2022 season. It was his first big league coaching job, though he had spent 2021 as a coach at the Triple-A level for the Mariners after retiring from his playing career in 2020.

Travis Blankenhorn Elects Free Agency

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Outfielder Travis Blankenhorn has chosen to become a free agent rather than accept an outright assignment to the Nationals’ Triple-A affiliate, the club announced.  The free agent route was available to the 27-year-old Blankenhorn because has previously been outrighted earlier in his career.

After signing a minor league deal with the Nats last winter, Blankenhorn spent much of his season at Triple-A Rochester before his contract was selected to the big league roster at the start of September.  Blankenhorn appeared in 10 games, but a case of plantar fasciitis sent him to the 10-day injured list and prematurely ended his season.

Blankenhorn has appeared in each of the last four MLB seasons, though he played in just a single big league game in both 2020 and 2022.  In total, the outfielder has a .581 OPS over the small sample size of 68 career plate appearances, though his Triple-A numbers are much stronger.  Blankenhorn has a .261/.353/.485 slash line and 48 home runs over 1053 PA at the top minor league level, playing with five different organizations’ Triple-A affiliates over the last three seasons.

With that kind of offensive production and experience at first base, second base, and both corner outfield positions, it isn’t surprising that so many teams have taken an interest in Blankenhorn, even if he has been through the grind of moving from organization to organization with only a few cups of coffee at the MLB level.  He’ll now test free agency yet again, and the complication of lingering foot pain due to his plantar fasciitis could certainly be a concern for Blankenhorn’s chances of quickly landing another minor league contract.

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