- The Nationals have outrighted outfielder Matt den Dekker to Triple-A Syracuse, the club announced. Washington designated den Dekker for assignment Friday. The 29-year-old has not fared well this season in either Syracuse or D.C., having hit .208/.290/.319 in 407 Triple-A plate appearances and .176/.282/.294 in 39 major league PAs. Den Dekker is only a year removed from providing useful depth at the big league level, though, as he batted .253/.315/.485 in 110 trips to the plate and saw time at all three outfield positions. The latter has once again been the case this season.
Nationals Rumors
Nats Select Contracts Of Latos, Burnett; Den Dekker Designated For Assignment
The Nationals announced that they’ve designated outfielder Matt den Dekker for assignment as part of a series of roster moves. Den Dekker’s 40-man spot will go to left-handed reliever Sean Burnett, and the team has also selected the contract of right-hander Mat Latos, with righty Joe Ross moving to the 60-day DL to clear room. Washington has also recalled Pedro Severino, Brian Goodwin, Matt Grace, Rafael Martin and Trevor Gott from Triple-A Syracuse.
Latos, 28, opened the season with the White Sox and pitched brilliantly in April before his production cratered in the May and June. After posting a 0.74 ERA through four starts (which came in spite of a 13-to-7 K/BB ratio in 24 1/3 innings and was propped up by a .167 BABIP), Latos went on to yield 29 earned runs over his next 36 innings before being released by the South Siders. He hasn’t pitched in the Majors since, though he’s thrown well in the Nationals’ minor league system, tallying a 1.06 ERA in 17 innings with Triple-A Syracuse. However, he’s still not missing bats even at Triple-A, punching out just 10 hitters against seven walks in those 17 innings. Latos figures to head to the bullpen initially, though he could get some spot starts in September with Stephen Strasburg and Ross currently on the DL.
Burnett, 34 in two weeks, will return to the Majors for the first time since 2014, though he only tossed two-third of an inning in that injury-shortened season. The veteran southpaw has thrown just 10 1/3 innings at the Major League level in total since he last donned a Nationals uniform back in 2012. Burnett’s career has been slowed by elbow injuries and Tommy John surgery, but he’s pitched well across four Triple-A stops this season (Dodgers, Braves, Twins, Nationals). In 47 1/3 innings at that level, Burnett has a 2.28 ERA with 6.1 K/9 and 2.7 BB/9. Opposing lefties have batted just .213/.246/.279 against him in 65 chances this season, so he could be used in left-on-left matchups, which could prove vital to a team that has lacked quality left-handed relief.
Den Dekker, 29, had a solid season as a reserve outfielder for the Nats in 2015 when he batted .253/.315/.485 with five homers in 110 plate appearances, but he mustered just a .176/.282/.294 line in 19 games/39 plate appearances this season. Most of his 2016 campaign has been spent in Syracuse, where he’s hit .208/.290/.319. His overall numbers both in the Majors and minors are considerably better than his 2016 production (or lack thereof), and den Dekker is capable of playing all three outfield positions, so he could latch on elsewhere as a bench piece. If not, he should hold appeal to clubs on a minor league pact as a free agent this winter.
As a reminder, readers can head over to Roster Resource for a full list of transactions thus far since Sept. 1 roster expansion.
Free Agent Stock Watch: Mark Melancon
This winter’s free agent starting pitching class is so thin that two relievers (Aroldis Chapman and Kenley Jansen) easily carry the most earning power of any arm on the open market. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see more teams choosing to spend their pitching dollars on their relief corps rather than their rotations this offseason given the lack of starting options, not to mention baseball’s growing trend of ultra-deep bullpens.
In short, the opportunity is there for Mark Melancon to score a very nice multi-year contract. He won’t cost as much as Chapman or Jansen, though he is maybe only a step behind that elite pair of closers in terms of performance and several steps above the next-best free agent stopper, Santiago Casilla, as well as recent ninth-inning men such as Brad Ziegler and Jonathan Papelbon. (Of the closers who could be free agents if their club options aren’t picked up, only Wade Davis stands out as superior to Melancon, though the Royals will almost surely exercise their $10MM option on Davis for 2017.)
Looking at how Melancon, Chapman and Jansen have performed since the start of the 2013 season, Melancon is the clear bronze medalist within this “big three” of free agent closers, though he brings a different skillset to the table. He records far fewer strikeouts but also generates far more grounders, and Melancon has the lowest BB/9 (1.45), home run rate (5.5%) and ERA (1.74) of the trio.
Like Jansen, Melancon’s chief weapon is a cut fastball. Jorge Castillo of the Washington Post recently detailed how Melancon’s emergence as a force within the Pirates bullpen in 2013 was due to a full embrace of the cutter, and his reliance on that pitch and his curveball have only become more pronounced. The breakdown of Melancon’s pitch selection in 2015 reveals that he used his standard fastball only eight percent of the time and a changeup 0.3% of the time, while tossing 64.6% cutters and 27.1% curves. Never a particularly hard thrower, Melancon averages 91.7 mph on his heater (not a big drop from his high of 93 mph as a rookie in 2009) and has averaged around 90.7 mph on his cutter in 2015-16, down from roughly 91.7 mph in 2013-14.
As Castillo’s piece notes, there are some concerns about how the cutter can tax a pitcher’s elbow. Melancon underwent Tommy John surgery a decade ago, but has been very durable since. Ultimately, he carried only a slightly above-average risk factor for another UCL injury in last February’s statistical assessment of MLBTR contributor Bradley Woodrum.
Jansen has his own notable injury history and Chapman has a wholly separate set of issues due to his suspension under MLB’s domestic violence policy, so Melancon’s top free agent competition also has some baggage. Still, beyond health and strikeout rate, age is the most obvious reason Jansen and Chapman are better-positioned than Melancon for a pricier long-term contract. Both will be 29 next Opening Day while Melancon will be 32 years old.
MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes feels both Chapman and Jansen could land five-year deals worth more than $70MM, which would set a new standard for relief pitching contracts. It isn’t totally out of the question that either could land an unprecedented (for a reliever) six guaranteed years, though their rising tide wouldn’t lift Melancon’s boat into the realm of a five-year deal. No reliever has received five guaranteed years* since B.J. Ryan’s free agent deal with the Blue Jays way back in the 2005-06 offseason, and while Chapman and Jansen likely have a chance to crack that threshold, no team is making that big a commitment to a 32-year-old relief pitcher.
*Sean Doolittle’s extension with the A’s in April 2014 was technically a five-year pact, though it doesn’t really count given that the first year of that deal was already underway. Doolittle was also still a pre-arbitration player when he signed, so it’s not really a good comparable for Melancon’s situation.
A four-year deal, however, seems like a logical target for Melancon and his representatives at Relativity Baseball. Over the last two offseasons, David Robertson ($46MM), Andrew Miller ($36MM) and Darren O’Day ($31MM) all found four-year contracts on the open market. O’Day was entering his age-33 season and is a setup man rather than a proven closer, so there’s a good argument to be made that O’Day’s four years/$31MM is the floor of what Melancon can hope to receive this winter.
Robertson had only one season of closing experience at the time of his deal with the White Sox, while Miller had only one career save and, really, only one season as a truly reliable bullpen option under his belt when he signed with the Yankees. That said, those two pitchers signed their deals going into their age-30 seasons, and those two extra years of youth could very well carry more weight than Melancon’s three-plus years of an outstanding track record. If Melancon does land a four-year pact, his dollar figure should land somewhere much closer to Miller’s $36MM than it will Robertson’s $48MM salary.
It figures to be a busy market for closers this winter, in no small part because some of the game’s biggest spenders (such as the Cubs, Dodgers, Nationals and Giants) have their own stoppers hitting free agency and will be looking to re-sign or replace those ninth-inning standouts. The Rangers, Marlins, Cardinals, Mariners, Angels, Twins, Braves, Rockies, Diamondbacks and Yankees could also be looking for a new closer; the teams on that list who already have pretty steady closers could shift them into roles as Melancon’s setup man, thus improving overall bullpen depth. It also wouldn’t be a surprise to see a team with both an established closer and setup man get into the hunt for Melancon, in order to create a three-headed bullpen monster a la the 2015 Royals or the 2016 Yankees.
One market-limiting factor Melancon won’t have to worry about is the qualifying offer, as Melancon was traded from the Pirates to the Nationals at the deadline. The deal allowed the Bucs to obtain two promising young arms (Felipe Rivero and Taylor Hearn) for a reliever they wouldn’t have been able to afford re-signing, whereas Washington was making a win-now move to upgrade their bullpen. Melancon has been superb since joining the Nats, and continued excellence down the stretch and potentially through the postseason would certainly do a lot to raise his already-high profile heading into free agency.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Nationals To Add Mat Latos To Active Roster
The Nationals have struck a slightly modified agreement with righty Mat Latos that will result in him joining the major league roster, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports tweets. Though Latos could’ve opted out today if he was not promoted, he has agreed to stay in the minors until rosters expand on Thursday and will return to the majors at that time.
Because Latos is already in the organization, the delay will not have any impact on his eligibility for a hypothetical post-season roster. Of course, as things stand, it would be something of a surprise if he ends up representing an appealing option for playoff duty.
The 28-year-old has been on a roller-coaster ever since he was traded from the Reds to the Marlins after the 2014 season. There have been moments where he looked like the high-quality starter he once was, and others when he has been mediocre on the hill while representing a questionable clubhouse presence.
It’s a results-oriented business at the end of the day, and Latos hasn’t steadily delivered of late. Since the start of the 2015 campaign, he has compiled a 4.84 ERA over 176 2/3 innings with 6.7 K/9 against 2.9 BB/9.
ERA estimators suggest that he has been somewhat better than those figures would suggest. Trouble is, though, his peripherals and average fastball velocity have sagged more recently, raising renewed concerns whether he’ll ever regain the form that allowed him to average 200 frames of 3.27 ERA pitching over 2010 to 2013.
Latos and the Nats hope that he’ll thrive in his new environment, which represents something of a homecoming. The righty is from the Northern Virginia area originally, though he spent the bulk of his youth in Florida. More importantly, perhaps, he has done his best work as a big leaguer under the command of former Reds skipper Dusty Baker, who now helms the Nationals.
The preliminary results have been reasonably promising. Latos has permitted just two earned runs over 17 innings in three starts at the Triple-A level, though he has only ten strikeouts against seven walks in that span.
Whether or not Latos is able to contribute much down the stretch, then, is at best an open question. But the Nationals are in need of solid-enough innings as they look to ease Stephen Strasburg and Joe Ross back into action in advance of the playoffs. With a healthy eight-game advantage in the NL East, the Nats can probably afford to take a risk on quality in favor of managing the burden on their existing staff. That ought to provide some opportunity for Latos to tally some MLB frames before he returns to the open market at season’s end.
Nationals Face Roster Decision On Mat Latos
Right-hander Mat Latos can opt out of his minor league deal with the Nationals if he isn’t added to the team’s 25-man roster by tomorrow, FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal reports (Twitter link). Latos signed a minor league deal with the Nats in late June that reportedly contained multiple opt-out dates, and given how late it is in the season, one would think Monday could be the final chance for Latos to pursue another opportunity if he so chooses.
It has been quite the roller-coaster of a season for Latos, who began the year with an 0.74 ERA over his first 24 1/3 innings in the White Sox rotation. Latos greatly outperformed his peripherals stats in delivering this great start, and he came back to earth by posting a 7.25 ERA over his next 36 innings. On the whole, Latos has a 4.62 ERA, 44.3% grounder rate, 4.77 K/9 and 1.28 K/BB rate over 60 1/3 frames in 2016, with ERA indicators like FIP (5.54), xFIP (5.47) and SIERA (5.57) hinting that he is still somewhat fortunate to be delivering even that modest 4.62 figure.
Since joining the Nats system, however, Latos has a 1.29 ERA, 2.8 K/BB rate and 28 strikeouts over 28 innings split between rookie ball and Triple-A. As you might expect, those numbers are largely weighted towards Latos dominating the rookie league; while he has a 1.06 ERA over 17 frames at Triple-A Syracuse, his 5.3 K/9 indicates that Latos is still having problems missing bats against tougher competition. The righty has battled knee injuries and a likely-related loss of velocity in recent years, averaging around 90mph over the last two seasons.
As the Nationals’ depth chart (tip of the hat to Roster Resource) indicates, the NL East leaders aren’t short on starting pitching options even with Stephen Strasburg and Joe Ross on the disabled list. Youngsters A.J. Cole and Lucas Giolito have filled in behind rotation fixtures Max Scherzer, Gio Gonzalez and Tanner Roark, Reynaldo Lopez could be recalled from Triple-A for another start, or swingman Yusmeiro Petit is also available for a spot outing. Washington does have an eight-game lead in the NL East, however, so the club has some flexibility in calling up Latos as a veteran innings eater in order to preserve one of its young arms. Giolito, for instance, has struggled at the MLB level, including a rough start today in a loss to the Rockies.
Joe Ross Progressing Toward Return
- Nationals right-hander Joe Ross, out since July 2 with inflammation in his pitching shoulder, will begin a rehab assignment with Triple-A Syracuse on Sunday, reports Jamal Collier of MLB.com. There might not be enough time for Ross to build up the arm strength necessary to factor into the Nationals’ rotation down the stretch, however, as Syracuse will play its final game Sept. 5. “I don’t know, that’s a question that we’re trying to answer now,” manager Dusty Baker said of Ross’ chances of starting again in 2016. “And if not, then hopefully in the playoffs he can be on the team and help us out of the bullpen.” Before succumbing to injury, Ross recorded a 3.49 ERA, 7.46 K/9 and 2.45 BB/9 over 95 1/3 innings. Whether as a starter or reliever, then, his return would serve as a boon to the Nats.
Aaron Barrett Suffers Setback
- Nationals reliever Aaron Barrett suffered a significant setback in his return from Tommy John surgery, as Mark Zuckerman of CSNWashington.com notes on Twitter. He broke his elbow five weeks ago while working his way back. That obviously takes the talented righty out of the mix for a late-season return, and further clouds his future. The 28-year-old has swing-and-miss stuff, but will now need to overcome a second major surgery.
Nationals Acquire Marc Rzepczynski
The Nationals announced that they’ve acquired left-handed reliever Marc Rzepczynski and cash considerations from the A’s in exchange for minor league infielder Max Schrock.
Rzepczynski (nicknamed “Scrabble,” for Nationals fans looking for an easier moniker for their new bullpen arm) currently has a 3.00 ERA, a 37-to-24 K/BB ratio and an exceptional 69.5 percent ground-ball rate in 36 innings for Oakland thus far in 2016. That 6.0 BB/9 rate isn’t quite as troubling as it may look, either, as six of Rzepczynski’s 24 walks on the season have been intentional. Control has never been a strong suit for him, however, as he’s averaged four walks per nine innings throughout his career. The 30-year-old Rzepczynski will give manager Dusty Baker a much-needed lefty in the bullpen, as an injury to Sammy Solis and the struggles of Oliver Perez have left the D.C. bullpen lacking in that regard.
Rzepczynski has excelled against lefties throughout his career (.225/.295/.302) but has actually struggled against same-handed opponents this season, surrendering a .296/.360/.395 batting line. He’s been unusually effective against right-handed hitters, though, at least in terms of allowing extra-base hits. While his control issues have led to a .400 OBP for opposing righties, they’re also hitting just .226 with a .274 slugging percentage against him. A free agent at season’s end, Rzepczynski is earning $2.95MM this season, so the cash considerations heading to the Nats will help to offset some of the remaining $629K on his 2016 salary.
In Schrock, the A’s will receive a 21-year-old that has enjoyed a terrific season at the plate in his first full professional season. Selected in the 13th round of last year’s draft, Schrock has batted .333/.378/.456 with nine homers, 31 doubles, two triples and 22 stolen bases in 543 plate appearances. Baseball America listed Schrock as a rising prospect in the Nats’ system back in July (subscription required and recommended), and he rated 17th among Nationals prospects on MLB.com’s midseason top 30 list, drawing praise for his bat speed, hand-eye coordination and ability to control the strike zone. Jonathan Mayo and Jim Callis call him a “pure hitter” in that scouting report but note that he is only “adequate” and also “erratic” at second base, with his lack of speed and questionable throwing arm making left field his only real fallback on the defensive spectrum.
Defensive question marks aside, the Nationals look to have paid a fairly steep price for a six-week rental of Rzepczynski. However, given their current standing as the second-best team in the National League (73-53), trade options for the Nats were probably few and far between. Lefty relievers are always in demand, and the teams trailing the Nats in the standings of course have plenty of motivation to place claims on players with an intend to block the Nats, furthering complicating their road to acquiring bullpen help.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Stephen Strasburg Placed On DL Due To Elbow Soreness
12:43pm: Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports that Strasburg has some inflammation in his elbow that he would pitch through were the team in the postseason (links to Twitter). However, considering their lead in the NL East, the Nationals are being proactive in getting him some rest before the postseason. Per Sherman, there’s no structural damage in Strasburg’s elbow.
12:31pm: Nationals right-hander Stephen Strasburg was placed on the 15-day disabled list today with a sore right elbow, the team announced this afternoon. Strasburg’s placement on the DL is retroactive to Sunday, and he’s been replaced on the active roster and in the rotation by right-hander A.J. Cole, who has been recalled from Triple-A Syracuse.
[Related: Updated Washington Nationals Depth Chart]
Strasburg, 28, was in the midst of one of his finest seasons before hitting a rough patch earlier this month. After allowing 19 runs in 11 2/3 innings over his past three starts, he’s seen his ERA balloon from 2.63 to 3.59. This will mark the second DL stint of the season for Strasburg, who missed a couple of weeks due to an upper back strain earlier this summer.
Speculation on the nature of the injury, of course, will be aggressive, but there’s no word of the severity, whether an MRI has been scheduled (or already performed), or when Strasburg could return to action. The Nats do have a sizable 8.5 game lead on the National League East, so it’s possible that they’re simply taking the opportunity to get one of their top arms some rest while leaving him enough time to ramp back up late in the season before a hopeful playoff push.
Strasburg was slated to hit the open market following the 2016 season but surprised many in the industry by opting to instead sign a seven-year, $175MM extension with the Nationals back in early May, forgoing a chance at entering the offseason as the name in free agency.
Rizzo On The Sandy Leon Trade
- The Nationals’ trade of Sandy Leon to the Red Sox for cash considerations in March 2015 drew little attention at the time, though it has become an unexpectedly important deal given how Leon has blossomed in Boston. Leon entered the day with a stunning 1.088 OPS over 158 plate appearances this season, completely dwarfing anything he’d done at the major or minor league levels. “I personally signed Sandy Leon when he was 16½ years old…My name is on that one,” Nats GM Mike Rizzo said. “He was a good catch-and-throw kid, and what a kid. He’s one of the greatest young men I’ve ever been around. I’m so happy he’s doing well especially offensively, but I never saw it coming.”
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- The Nationals’ trade of Sandy Leon to the Red Sox for cash considerations in March 2015 drew little attention at the time, though it has become an unexpectedly important deal given how Leon has blossomed in Boston. Leon entered the day with a stunning 1.088 OPS over 158 plate appearances this season, completely dwarfing anything he’d done at the major or minor league levels. “I personally signed Sandy Leon when he was 16½ years old…My name is on that one,” Nats GM Mike Rizzo said. “He was a good catch-and-throw kid, and what a kid. He’s one of the greatest young men I’ve ever been around. I’m so happy he’s doing well especially offensively, but I never saw it coming.”
