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Josh Bell Looks Like A Trade Candidate For The Second Straight Offseason

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Last winter, Josh Bell found himself on the move. The Pirates, the only team for which he’d played in his career, were amidst a full rebuild. Bell was down to his final two seasons of arbitration control, and his escalating salaries were accounting for a larger percentage of Pittsburgh’s annually low payrolls.

Bell’s value last winter was complicated by a subpar 2020 showing. While he seemed to break out as a middle-of-the-order slugger with a .277/.367/.569 showing the year before, the switch-hitter stumbled during the shortened season. Bell appeared in 57 of the Bucs’ 60 games but he hit only .226/.305/.364 across 223 plate appearances. Of perhaps even greater concern, his strikeout rate spiked from 19.2% to a career-high 26.5%.

In need of a first baseman, the Nationals took a shot on a Bell bounceback. Washington acquired the Texas native for a pair of pitching prospects, Eddy Yean and Wil Crowe. While Bell didn’t completely regain his 2019 numbers, that move largely paid off for Nats’ general manager Mike Rizzo and his staff.

The 29-year-old appeared in 144 games and tallied 568 trips to the plate this past season. His 27 home runs were the second most of his career, trailing only his 37 longballs from 2019. Overall, Bell hit .261/.347/.476, an offensive showing that checked in 18 percentage points above the league average by measure of wRC+.

In addition to the improved results, Bell seemingly rediscovered his better process at the dish. He cut his strikeouts back to their typical range, punching out in only 17.8% of his plate appearances (about five points lower than average). His rate of contact on swings rebounded to 77.4% after cratering to 69% during his down year in 2020. Those better bat-to-ball skills came without sacrificing contact authority. Bell’s average exit velocity (92.5 MPH) and hard contact rate (52%) in 2021 were each career bests.

The one alarming aspect of Bell’s batted ball profile that carried over from 2020 was an uptick in ground-balls. While he’d only put 44% of his batted balls on the ground in his 2019 peak season, that spiked to 55.7% in 2020 and checked in at 53.5% this year. So Bell gave back some of the impact of his hard contact by hitting the ball into the turf, explaining why his power numbers didn’t bounce all the way back to 2019 form.

Even still, Bell had a decent season. His numbers were a bit better than the .257/.338/.454 leaguewide mark from first basemen. His 2019 campaign offers a hint of further offensive potential, and Bell had a quietly strong second half. From the All-Star Break onward, he hit .277/.381/.506 with more walks than strikeouts (albeit with a still concerning 55.9% grounder percentage).

That largely went unnoticed, though, because Washington had since fallen out of contention. While the Nats had hoped that a Bell resurgence would be part of a team-wide bounceback that’d keep them competitive in the NL East, things didn’t play out that way. Washington hovered around the periphery of contention for the season’s first few months, but a mid-July swoon kicked off a deadline teardown and organizational reboot.

Bell wasn’t part of that midseason sell-off, but there figures to be a bit more interest around the league after his strong play down the stretch. He’s now entering his final year of club control, and the Nationals don’t seem to have a plausible path to contention next season. It’s not clear Washington wants to entertain a multi-year rebuild — with Juan Soto under club control for three more seasons, there’s not much time to dawdle — but Bell’s ticketed for free agency next winter anyhow. Trading him coming out of the lockout wouldn’t be a sign of a longer-term rebuild so much as a recognition of their unlikely contention status in 2022.

The first base market didn’t move much before the transactions freeze. Freddie Freeman’s status seems to linger over both free agency and trade possibilities. Beyond Freeman, Anthony Rizzo remains on the open market. The A’s seem likely to trade Matt Olson. Perhaps the Yankees will move Luke Voit. Some of those dominoes may have to fall before there’s much progress on a potential Bell trade.

At a projected $10MM arbitration salary, he’s not going to bring back a return as strong as Oakland would get for Olson or New York would recoup for Voit. There’ll be teams in the Freeman/Olson markets who don’t land those stars, though. The upcoming collective bargaining agreement may introduce a universal designated hitter, leaving some National League clubs looking for another bat. Some of those teams figure to see Bell as a viable alternative to the market’s costlier options. Given the Nationals’ current competitive situation, it wouldn’t be too surprising if he’s donning a different uniform for the third straight year come Opening Day.

Teams That Want To Dump Salary Should Contact The Nationals

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When a team wants to subtract some salary from its ledger, it can sometimes arrange a trade that packages a well-paid veteran player with some prospects. The team on the receiving end effectively “buys” the prospects by taking on the unwanted salary of that veteran. The most recent example of this was the trade that sent Hunter Renfroe to the Brewers, with the Red Sox receiving Jackie Bradley Jr., along with infield prospects David Hamilton and Alex Binelas.

Renfroe was projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz for a salary of $7.6MM in 2022, while Bradley will earn $9.5MM in 2022 and then there is a mutual option for 2023 that comes with a $12MM salary and $8MM buyout. Given Bradley’s horrible season at the plate in 2021, the Brewers wanted to get rid of that contract, and were willing to part with a couple of prospects to do it while still getting back a useful piece. The Red Sox, for their part, will take on that salary, hoping for a bounceback from Bradley. But even if that doesn’t happen, they will have bolstered their farm at least.

For other teams that want to follow the Brewers and shuffle a contract around, they might want to start by contacting the Nationals. After a massive trade deadline selloff in 2021, their current payroll is the lowest it’s been in years. Jason Martinez of Roster Resource estimates that they’re currently lined up for an opening day number of $118MM. The last time they were below that was 2012, the year 19-year-old Bryce Harper made his debut. In the past four years, they’ve been between $180MM and $200MM, prorating 2020’s number. (Past figures from Cot’s Baseball Contracts.)

The club is looking to “reboot” for a year or two, but seems to want to return to competing before superstar Juan Soto reaches free agency after the 2024 season. That means they are in position for this type of deal, as long as it’s a contract of the short-term variety. They could add to the young talent they acquired in their 2021 fire sale, while not limiting their ability to make a big move or two for the 2024 campaign and beyond.

The White Sox ran a franchise-high payroll in 2021 and are currently lined up to blow past that in 2022. Trading Craig Kimbrel, who has one year and $16MM remaining on his contract, appears to be in their plans. Another option would be Dallas Keuchel, who will make $18MM in 2022. He also has a $20MM club option for 2023 with a $1.5MM buyout, although that option would also vest if Keuchel throws 160 innings in 2022. The White Sox finished dead last on Baseball America’s most recent Organization Talent Rankings, meaning that sending some prospects out the door might not be the top of their to-do list. (The Nats, despite their big deadline haul, came in 23rd.) However, Chicago’s window of contention is wide open, standing out as the current favourite in the AL Central, meaning their priority should be the present and not the future. For the Nationals, they have lots of question marks on their pitching staff after trading away so many arms. Their staff is mostly composed of unproven youngsters, to go along with veterans like Stephen Strasburg, Patrick Corbin and Will Harris, who come with question marks of their own.

The Rays have never been shy about moving their more expensive veteran players, trading away Blake Snell, Tommy Pham and many others in recent years. Kevin Kiermaier’s name has been floated as someone else who could follow them out of The Trop, seemingly ever since they signed him to an extension in 2017. That extension is now entering its final guaranteed year, with Kiermaier set to make just over $12MM in 2022, though there’s also a $2.5MM buyout on a $13MM club option for 2023. The Nats don’t really have anyone who should be guaranteed an outfield job, other than Soto. Lane Thomas had a strong showing after coming over from the Cardinals, but that was a small sample of just 45 games.

The Reds are trying to thread the needle of dropping payroll yet staying competitive. Mike Moustakas is owed $38MM over the final two years of his contract, including the buyout of a 2024 club option, and he’s been somewhat crowded out by the breakout campaign of Jonathan India. By moving Moustakas, they could hold onto their highly-coveted starting pitcher trio of Luis Castillo, Sonny Gray and Tyler Mahle. The Nats probably want Carter Kieboom to get a long run of playing time at third, but Moustakas could split time at second with Cesar Hernandez and act as a fallback plan in the event Kieboom struggles to secure the job. The implementation of the DH for the NL would also help spread the at-bats around. Shogo Akiyama is another option, as he had a rough campaign in 2021 and still has one year and $8MM remaining on his contract.

There are dozens of other options, as most teams have a contract that they wouldn’t mind getting off the books a year or two early. Some other rapidfire examples: Jake Odorizzi, Carlos Santana, Justin Upton, Randal Grichuk, David Price, Wil Myers, Jurickson Profar, Paul DeJong.

With the Nats about $60MM to $80MM below their recent spending levels, they have a lot of room to work with. Though they’d surely like to keep payroll a bit lower during this rebooting phase, they’d also be wise to at least consider “buying” a few prospects to help them quickly build back up. After all, Soto won’t be interested in signing an extension until the club proves they’re trying to win. Spending some money now to improve the future could be one way of trying to convince him.

Latest On The Nationals' Bullpen

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  • Relief pitching has been an issue for the Nationals for years, and in looking ahead to next season, the Nats have already acquired Francisco Perez from the Guardians and added three relievers in the minor league Rule 5 Draft.  As The Washington Post’s Jesse Dougherty notes, this can help the Nationals augment a bullpen that has already parted ways with several members of its 2021 relief corps, and is lacking in homegrown minor league relievers who could provide immediate help.

Read The Transcript Of Our Chat With Former MLB Closer Chad Cordero

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The Montreal Expos drafted Chad Cordero 20th overall in 2003 out of Cal State Fullerton, and months later he was in the Majors as a member of their bullpen.  Chad had a fine season as part of the last-ever Expos team in ’04.  By the time this website launched in ’05, the inaugural Nationals season, he was the best reliever on the planet.  Cordero saved an MLB-best 47 games that year, posted a 1.82 ERA, made the All-Star team, and received MVP and Cy Young votes.

Cordero went on to save 128 games in his excellent career, all with the Expos/Nationals from 2003-07.  He also appeared briefly for the Mariners in 2010 before deciding to retire.

After enjoying our chat with fellow Fullerton alum Christian Colon, Chad reached out because he loves chatting with baseball fans.  We were thrilled to host him.  Chad was generous with his time and gave thoughtful answers to questions.  Read the transcript of the Chad Cordero chat here.

Since MLBTR readers have enjoyed our chats with MLB players, I’ll keep trying to line them up!  If you’re a current or former MLB player who would like to participate, please send us an email.  It only takes an hour, and you get to choose which questions you publish and answer!

Nationals Expanding Player Development Staffs

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Of course, Williams is better known for his 17-year big league playing career and two seasons as Nationals’ manager. A five-time All-Star as a player, Williams took over the Washington dugout in 2014. He was named the National League’s Manager of the Year in his first season at the helm, a year in which the club went 96-66 to claim the NL East title. Yet the Nats disappointed the following season, and Williams was dismissed and replaced with Dusty Baker after the 2015 campaign. Most recently, he spent the 2020-21 campaigns managing the Kia Tigers of the Korea Baseball Organization. Williams and the Tigers mutually agreed to part ways at the end of this past season.

  • The Nationals are planning to expand their scouting, player development and minor league coaching staffs, writes Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post. As Dougherty explores, Washington has had one of the smaller player development groups around the league in recent seasons. General manager Mike Rizzo and player development director De Jon Watson each recently spoke with Dougherty about the changes, which will see the Nats attempt to streamline their use of video and data in player development. Not coincidentally, the increased emphasis on the minor leagues comes a few months after the club kicked off an organizational reboot at the July 30 trade deadline. Barring changes to the service time structure, the Nationals will control Juan Soto for three more seasons via arbitration. Soto’s potential post-2024 free agency only adds to the urgency for Washington to develop ancillary contributors around their superstar outfielder.

Nationals Sign Maikel Franco To Minor League Deal

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The Nationals have signed third baseman Maikel Franco to a minor league deal, reports Jesse Dougherty of The Washington Post. Franco is a client of Octagon. Although transactions involving the 40-man roster are frozen during the ongoing lockout, minor league deals are still permitted.

This is the second minor league deal the Nats have given to a veteran infielder in as many days, as they signed Dee Strange-Gordon yesterday. The club has a fairly open infield for 2022, after trading away Trea Turner and Josh Harrison during last year’s deadline fire sale. They’ve since re-signed Alcides Escobar and Cesar Hernandez on major league deals, before adding Strange-Gordon into the mix, to compete with youngsters Luis Garcia and Lucius Fox for middle infield playing time.

Franco, however, should be considered as an option at third base, given that’s where he’s spent the vast majority of his big league time. (He’s also played 15 games at first base in his career, but never more than five in a single season.) Youngster Carter Kieboom seems likely to be Plan A for the Nats at third, despite his struggles at the MLB level thus far. In 106 big league games over the past three seasons, Kieboom has hit .197/.304/.285. However, his Triple-A line is much more impressive, coming in at .286/.400/.464. Given his youth, 24, and prospect pedigree, he’s likely to get an extended run at the hot corner, especially when considering that Washington is likely to spend at least a year retooling after their big selloff. Franco’s presence in the system can offer a veteran fallback plan, should Kieboom continue experiencing growing pains.

Franco has had an inconsistent stretch of late, oscillating wildly from year to year. According to FanGraphs’ wins above replacement, he was worth at least 1.1 fWAR in the past three even-numbered seasons, but was in negative territory during the odd-numbered years. After some of those up-and-down years in Philadelphia, he was non-tendered following the 2019 season and latched on with the Royals. He had a solid showing in the shortened 2020 campaign, hitting .278/.321/.457 for a wRC+ of 106 and 1.3 fWAR in just 60 games. Despite that, the Royals decided not to tender him a contract for 2021, which led to Franco signing with the Orioles. Unfortunately, his yo-yoing continued, as he slumped to a line of .210/.253/.355 in 104 games for Baltimore.

Franco was released in August and signed a minor league deal with Atlanta, but didn’t get another shot at the big leagues. For the Nationals, there’s no harm in having him around to see if he can turn the tide once again. He’s only 29 years old and has shown himself capable of solid production in the past. Even if Kieboom and Franco both get hot at the same time, there’s the likelihood of the National League using the designated hitter in 2022, giving the team some more plate appearances to spread around.

Nationals Sign Dee Strange-Gordon To Minors Contract

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The Nationals have signed infielder Dee Strange-Gordon to a minor league contract, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan (Twitter link).  Strange-Gordon is a client of Rep 1 Baseball.

Minor league deals can be signed during the lockout, as so Strange-Gordon will now turn to Washington as the hopeful landing spot for his return to the majors.  Strange-Gordon signed minors contracts with the Reds, Brewers, Cubs, and Pirates in 2021 but none of those deals materialized into any big league playing time, thus leaving Strange-Gordon on the sidelines of a MLB season for the first time since 2010.

The 33-year-old is very familiar with the NL East, achieving some of his greatest successes over three seasons with the Marlins from 2015-17.  Strange-Gordon won the 2015 NL batting title and led the league with 205 hits and 58 stolen bases that same season, then going on to capture another stolen-base crown in 2017.

Unfortunately for Strange-Gordon, 2017 also marked his last season as a productive regular.  After being traded to the Mariners in December 2017, Strange-Gordon posted only a combined 0.2 fWAR over three seasons in Seattle, batting .266/.293/.343 for a 74 wRC+.  While still an excellent baserunner, Strange-Gordon’s difficulties in getting on base largely neutralized that skill, and he was also hampered by a position switch from second base to center field.

The Nats inked Cesar Hernandez to a one-year, $4MM free agent deal prior to the lockout, making him their leading candidate for the everyday second base job.  As Hernandez is coming off a lackluster year himself, however, Strange-Gordon represents some veteran depth at the position, not to mention a utility piece that could also chip in as a left fielder or shortstop in a pinch.  With the experienced duo of Hernandez and Alcides Escobar tentatively penciled in as Washington’s starting middle infield combo, Strange-Gordon will look to join youngsters Luis Garcia and Lucius Fox in the competition for bench roles.

Coaching Notes: Giants, Nationals

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Let’s kick off this Saturday morning by checking in on the latest happenings around the game…

  • The Giants are adding Jacob Cruz to manager Gabe Kapler’s coaching staff. Cruz will be an assistant hitting coach for the 2022 season, per Robert Murray of FanSided. Cruz returns to the organization that drafted him in the first round as an outfielder back in 1994. He was an assistant hitting coach with the Brewers for the past two seasons, the Pirates, Cubs, and Diamondbacks before that. Cruz joins assistant hitting coach Pedro Guerrero, hitting coach Justin Viele, and director of hitting Dustin Lind as offensive coaches on Kapler’s staff.
  • Managers and coaches are not included in the hiring freeze brought on by the lockout, so coaching hires should continue to roll in. The Nationals are one organization that figures to be relatively active in filling out their coaching staff and development teams. The Nats have seen a number of their front office staff leave over the past year. They’re also looking to fill the position of minor league hitting coordinator, writes Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post.

Nationals’ Under-The-Radar Deadline Pickup Off To Strong Start In D.C.

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The Nationals had a high-profile teardown this past July. The biggest splash sent Max Scherzer and Trea Turner to the Dodgers, while other notables like Kyle Schwarber, Yan Gomes and Daniel Hudson were flipped to contenders. Almost buried amidst that flurry was a lower-profile swap announced less than an hour before the deadline: acquiring outfielder Lane Thomas from the Cardinals for veteran starter Jon Lester. While that trade didn’t grab nearly as many headlines as some of the Nats’ other moves, the early returns look very promising.

Thomas has been around for a few seasons, but he never got an extended look with St. Louis. Between 2019-21, he struggled to a .172/.289/.336 line across 142 scattered plate appearances. Generally regarded by prospect evaluators as a fourth outfield type and turning 26 years old in August, it’s easy to understand why the Cardinals’ front office was willing to make him available. Yet Thomas picked up everyday run on a depleted Washington roster down the stretch, putting up quietly excellent numbers.

Over 206 plate appearances in the nation’s capital, the former fifth-round pick posted a .270/.364/.489 slash line, hitting seven home runs and stealing four bases. He spent the bulk of that time in center field, playing well enough to supplant former top prospect Víctor Robles on the depth chart. That offensive output was 27 percentage points above the league average, by measure of wRC+. More encouragingly, it was largely backed up by strong plate discipline and batted ball metrics.

During his end-of-season run, Thomas demonstrated an enviable combination of patience, bat-to-ball skills and power on contact. The right-handed hitter had an extreme willingness to work deep counts, a continuation of a trend he’d shown in St. Louis. Thomas swings far less often than most at pitches both inside and outside the strike zone, a plan of attack that allows him to draw plenty of walks but also puts him at risk for his share of strikeouts. Yet he kept the punch outs manageable during his time in Washington by making contact on a robust 82.4% of his swings (about six percentage points higher than the league mark).

That patience and contact frequency gave Thomas a strong floor from an on-base perspective, but his contact authority was particularly impressive. The Tennessee native had an average exit velocity of 91.7 MPH, more than three ticks harder than the 88.1 MPH league average. According to FanGraphs, he made hard contact on 45.1% of his batted balls with the Nats. The average MLB hitter (excluding pitchers) had a 32.5% hard contact rate in 2021.

That’s a rare set of skills, even in a limited sample of work. Among the 463 players with at least 100 plate appearances, only sixteen managed a hard contact rate north of 40% while striking out in fewer than a quarter of their trips to the dish. Other than Thomas, every player in that group posted a wRC+ of 122 or higher (indicating they were at least 22 percentage points more productive than average offensively). Removing Thomas’ poor 58 plate appearances with the Cardinals early in the season puts him right among that very impressive list of names, both from a results and process perspective.

That’s not to say Thomas is absolutely an elite hitter now, or even that the Cardinals made a mistake in giving him up. Lester was a reliable source of decent innings down the stretch, helping St. Louis to a fantastic second-half run to the postseason. And Thomas needs more than two months of strong performance to cement himself as a core member of the Nats’ future.

His first couple months in a Washington uniform couldn’t have gone much better, though. At the very least, he’s earned an extended opportunity to try to cement himself alongside Juan Soto in the long-term outfield. The Nationals are likely to take a step back in 2022 as they audition younger players like Thomas, but they prioritized near-MLB returns during their deadline sell-off and aren’t about to embark on a rebuild while Soto is under club control. Washington may need some things to fall into place to be realistic contenders in what should be a competitive NL East by 2023. Thomas settling in as a productive regular would be one those pluses, and he’s started off on the right foot with his new club.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Minor MLB Transactions: 12/01/21

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Some recent minor moves from around baseball:

  • The Rockies have signed right-handed reliever J.D. Hammer to a minor league deal, according to Thomas Harding of MLB.com. In 23 2/3 innings at Triple-A this year in the Phillies’ organization, Hammer managed an ERA of 3.80 with a hefty 34.3% strikeout rate but also an elevated walk rate of 12.4%. At the big league level, he logged 20 innings with an ERA of 4.95, 23.4% strikeout rate and 11.7% walk rate. The Phils outrighted the 27-year-old at the end of the season and he elected free agency.
  • The Diamondbacks announced that they’ve returned infielder Jake Hager to the organization on a minor league deal. Hager started 2021 in the Mets organization and then was designated for assignment and claimed on waivers three times, bouncing to the Brewers, Mariners and Diamondbacks. Arizona then outrighted him in September. The 28-year-old didn’t hit much in the big leagues this year, but in a tiny sample of 30 plate appearances over 14 games. He played 82 Triple-A games in 2021 between those four organizations, hitting .240/.311/.461.
  • The Giants have agreed to a minor league deal with right-handed reliever Trevor Hildenberger, according to the MLB.com transactions tracker. Hildenberger logged 2 1/3 MLB innings for the Mets this year before being claimed and outrighted by the Giants. In 23 Triple-A innings for Sacramento River Cats, the 30-year-old put up an ERA of 4.70 with a strikeout rate of 22.5% and walk rate of 12.7%.
  • The Nationals have signed infielder Richard Urena to a minor league deal, per the MLB.com transactions tracker. The 25-year-old has played in 91 big league games in his career but hasn’t cracked the majors since 2019. In 2021, he played 92 Triple-A games in the Blue Jays’ system, hitting .272/.310/.438.
  • Outfielder Henry Ramos is joining the KT Wiz of the KBO, as relayed by Dan Kurtz of MyKBO.net. The 29-year-old had an unbelievable Triple-A season in 2021, slashing .371/.439/.582 over 294 plate appearances. He was selected by the Diamondbacks in September and got into 18 games, hitting .200/.255/.300 over 55 plate appearances. He was outrighted by the DBacks in October.
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