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East Notes: Phillies, Zimmerman, Porcello

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The big fish are off the market, but the Marlins are still looking to pick up a couple of notable relievers.  Miami is interested in signing Phil Coke to a minor league deal and they’re still open to inking Francisco Rodriguez.  Signing Coke to a minor league deal might not be a reality, however.  The 32-year-old is seeking a $2MM guarantee and is getting interest for a major league deal, according to Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet. More from the AL and NL East..

  • Cole Hamels and Cliff Lee won’t be winning any championships in Philadelphia this season, but they could help the Phillies win one down the road, Jim Salisbury of CSNPhilly.com writes.  Both players have been involved in trade rumors, of course, but it’s likely that they’ll start the season with the team and get moved sometime before the July 31st trade deadline. “Sometimes trades take two years to do, sometimes they take seven minutes,” GM Ruben Amaro said recently.  Amaro recently indicated that as many as eight teams have kicked the tires on Hamels and four have made “real” offers.
  • With five years and $74MM left on the contract extension he signed in 2012, Ryan Zimmerman may no longer be the face of the Nationals’ franchise, but he’s still one of the team’s most important players, as Mark Zuckerman of Nats Insider writes. This season, his ability to make a permanent position switch at the age of 30 may go a long way towards determining how far the Nats can go in 2015 and beyond.
  • Scott Lauber of the Boston Herald looked at Rick Porcello, who has the unique opportunity of becoming a free agent before his 27th birthday.  Boston is still without a true ace and the right-hander is being counted on by many to fill that role.
  • On Saturday, our own Mark Polishuk looked at Blue Jays catcher Dioner Navarro as a trade candidate.

Jerry Blevins Wins Arbitration Hearing Against Nationals

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Lefty Jerry Blevins has emerged victorious in his arbitration hearing against the Nationals, James Wagner of the Washington Post reports on Twitter. He will take home $2.4MM instead of the team’s $2.2MM submission.

Blevins, 31, had a mixed bag of a first season in D.C. He threw 57 1/3 innings of 4.87 ERA ball, hardly the result that the team hoped for when it dealt for him last winter. But his peripherals (a career-high 10.4 K/9 vs. 3.6 BB/9) led ERA estimators to value his effort much more highly. His 2.77 FIP, 3.25 xFIP, and 2.93 SIERA are all career bests.

Other than an unseasonably low strand rate (60.5%), Blevins’s biggest enemy was his difficult in limiting free passes to right-handed hitters. He walked nearly 14% of all righties who stepped in against him.

The Nationals will hope that the results catch back up to the peripherals this time around. Blevins is set to hit the open market at the end of the season.

Minor Moves: Jimenez, Fornataro, Davies, Elmore, Alderson

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Here are today’s minor moves from around the league…

  • The Phillies have outrighted lefty Cesar Jimenez to Triple-A, according to the International League transactions page. Despite inking a one-year deal to avoid arbitration back in October, Jimenez lost his roster spot to Chad Billingsley. He had strong results last year both in the bigs and upper minors, working to a 1.69 ERA in 16 MLB frames and a 1.45 mark over 49 2/3 innings at Triple-A.
  • Likewise, the Nationals passed righty Eric Fornataro through waivers and assigned him to Triple-A, the club announced. Washington claimed Fornataro off waivers from the Cardinals earlier in the offseason, then designated him to make room for Casey Janssen. The 27-year-old reached the bigs last year for the first time, but spent most of his season working to a 2.57 ERA in 56 Triple-A innings.
  • The Yankees have inked right-hander Kyle Davies to a minor league deal, Sweeny Murti of WFAN reports on Twitter. Davies, 31, has worked in the minors over the past two years with the Twins and Indians organization, tossing 154 1/3 innings of 3.91 ERA ball last year. He has seven years in the bigs on his resume, though he owns a career 5.59 ERA with 6.4 K/9 against 4.3 BB/9.
  • The Rays announced that they’ve signed utility man Jake Elmore to a minor league deal and invited him to Major League Spring Training. The 27-year-old Elmore elected free agency last week after being outrighted by the Pirates. He spent last season with the Triple-A affiliates for the Reds and the A’s (plus a brief MLB stint with Cincinnati), batting .281/.376/.345. Elmore’s most extensive MLB experience came with Houston in 2013, when he batted .242/.313/.325 in 136 plate appearances. Elmore played every position on the diamond with Houston that season, and he even pitched and caught in the same game.
  • Right-hander Tim Alderson signed a minor league deal with the Nationals, according to the team’s transactions page. San Francisco selected Alderson 22nd overall in 2007, and in the 2008-09 range, he was one of the organization’s top pitching prospects, alongside Madison Bumgarner. Alderson twice ranked in Baseball America’s Top 100, but his career stalled after he was flipped to the Pirates in the Freddy Sanchez trade of 2009. Now 26, Alderson has a lifetime 5.02 ERA with 7.3 K/9 and 2.9 BB/9 in 129 Triple-A innings, and a 4.24 ERA in his minor league career as a whole.

Quick Hits: Fielder, De Aza, Maddon, Scherzer

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Prince Fielder is one of several players whose hoped-for return to past production levels will go a long way toward determining the near-term fate of the Rangers. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News provides an interesting profile of Fielder, who says he is recharged, newly appreciative, and raring to go for 2015.

Here are a few more notes from around the league:

  • The Orioles are headed toward an arbitration hearing with outfielder Alejandro De Aza, Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com reports. Executive VP Dan Duquette explains that the club informed De Aza it had made him its best offer and would take a “file to go” strategy from that point forward. He expressed surprise that the team’s $5MM proposal was not accepted, noting that there had been discussions of a two-year deal as well. De Aza filed at $5.65MM, which actually falls shy of the $5.9MM that MLBTR and Matt Swartz projected. Baltimore’s arbitration strategy was actually the first topic covered by Kubatko in his recent appearance on the MLBTR Podcast.
  • MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said today that the league’s investigation into possible tampering by the Cubs into then-Rays manager Joe Maddon is still in progress, as ESPNChicago.com’s Jesse Rogers reports. Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein and Maddon’s agent, Alen Nero, have both insisted that nothing untoward occurred, but it appears that MLB will take its time and cover the matter thoroughly before coming to any conclusions.
  • Max Scherzer’s departure from the Tigers appears to have been all but a formality from the point that he rejected the club’s $140MM offer last spring, as the righty explained to MLB.com’s Jason Beck. Scherzer said that he wasn’t interested in holding contract talks during the season, and that the club was not interested in negotiating when Scherzer’s camp “reached out” over the offseason. Indeed, Scherzer said that both he and Rick Porcello realized some time ago that the club was likely going to undergo a lot of turnover in the coming years, which has indeed been the case.
  • As for his choice of the Nationals, Scherzer gave some further details on how the end game went down: “Of the teams that were really down to the end, the Nationals gave me the best opportunity [to win]. So because of that, that’s the recent why I told Scott [Boras] at the end, ’Let’s just negotiate with the Nationals.'”

Nationals Sign Casey Janssen

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The Nationals look to have found a replacement for recently traded setup man Tyler Clippard, as the team announced on Monday the signing of right-hander Casey Janssen to a one-year contract with a mutual option. The ACES client will reportedly receive a $5MM guarantee in the form of a $3.5MM 2015 salary and a $1.5MM buyout on his $7MM mutual option. He can also reportedly earn up to $500K via performance bonuses.

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The 33-year-old Janssen was one of the best remaining options on the relief market and has spent the bulk of the past three seasons serving as Toronto’s closer. His stats took a tumble in 2014, though some of that decline may have been attributable to a violent case of food poisoning. Janssen reportedly lost eight pounds in a single day as a result of that episode, and he likely rushed back to the mound too soon; Janssen spent two days on an IV to rehydrate his body and the next day began a stretch of five appearances in eight days.

Overall, he posted a 6.26 ERA in the second half that caused his overall mark on the season to balloon to 3.94. Janssen showed his typically excellent command in 2014, walking just 1.4 hitters per nine innings, but his strikeout rate curiously dipped, even during his healthy first half. Janssen averaged just 5.5 K/9 in 2014 — a decline of three strikeouts per nine when compared to his previous four seasons of work.

A rocky 2014 notwithstanding, Janssen’s work dating back to the 2011 season is nothing short of outstanding when judged as a whole. In that time, he’s worked to a 2.77 ERA with 8.2 K/9, 1.9 BB/9 and a 43 percent ground-ball rate. He saved 83 games for Toronto in that stretch and should give Nationals manager Matt Williams an experienced safety net for closer Drew Storen. However, Storen posted a sensational 1.12 ERA in 2014 and took over the ninth inning late in the season after Rafael Soriano struggled. His ERA and the fact that he closed out the year with a stretch of 20 innings without allowing an earned run likely still makes Storen the favorite for saves in 2015.

Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports first reported the deal (on Twitter). The Washington Post’s Barry Svrluga broke down the financial terms (Twitter links). Rosenthal later tweeted the details about Janssen’s incentives.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Nationals Designate Eric Fornataro For Assignment

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The Nationals announced that they have designated right-hander Eric Fornataro for assignment in order to clear room on the 40-man roster for Casey Janssen, whose one-year deal is now official.

The Nats claimed the 27-year-old Fornataro off waivers from the Cardinals in December following a season in which the former sixth-round pick made his Major League debut. Fornataro appeared in eight games for St. Louis, allowing five earned runs on 11 hits and a walk with three strikeouts in 9 2/3 innings of work. He worked primarily off a sinker that averaged 92.7 mph in the big leagues, registering an impressive 51.4 percent ground-ball rate in his brief big league sample.

Fornataro was markedly better in the minor leagues, where he notched a 2.57 ERA over 56 innings of relief. He averaged 5.6 K/9 and 3.2 BB/9 at Triple-A this season and was equally effective against both right- and left-handed hitters.

Quick Hits: Joba, Beachy, Eovaldi, Clippard

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Rather than throwing touchdowns for the Patriots, could Tom Brady have instead had a career throwing out baserunners for the Expos?  MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro looks back at how Montreal selected Brady (then a catcher at Serra High School) in the 18th round of the 1995 draft, even though it was widely known that Brady was going to play football at Michigan.  “I think he would have been a pro,” said scout John Hughes, who evaluated Brady for the Expos.  “He had all the intangibles. He could throw, left-handed power. There is no reason to think this guy couldn’t have been a big league catcher.”  While every New England sports fan breathes a sigh of relief that Brady stuck to the gridiron, here are some more notes from around baseball…

  • Joba Chamberlain has rejected multiple offers because he simply didn’t want to pitch for the teams that offered him those deals, FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal reports.  He’s considering a one-year deal with a modest base salary and incentives, as his hopes for a two-year contract have likely gone by the wayside.  There is still some question about Chamberlain’s makeup amongst league executives, and one exec told Rosenthal that the Tigers’ lack of interest in re-signing Chamberlain “alarmed him” given Detroit’s need for bullpen help.
  • Though Brandon Beachy was reportedly considering multiple offers and was thought to be close to signing a new contract earlier this month, his agent Rob Martin tells Ken Rosenthal (all Twitter links) that the right-hander will wait a bit longer.  “Brandon has decided not to sign a contract at this time. With each day his arm is getting stronger and he’s feeling even more confident about his progress,” Martin said.  “Thus, he is going to continue with his throwing program and make a decision closer to Spring Training.”
  • The Marlins were linked to Wade Miley earlier this winter, and now ESPN’s Buster Olney (Insider subscription required) reports that the Marlins thought they were in agreement with the Diamondbacks on a Miley-for-Nathan Eovaldi trade.  Arizona pulled out of the deal, however, and Miami instead dealt Eovaldi to the Yankees while the D’Backs sent Miley to the Red Sox.
  • Also from Olney, there is some speculation in rival front offices that the Nationals’ trade of Tyler Clippard might’ve been motivated by more than just a desire to move salary, especially since Washington just signed Casey Janssen to a healthy contract.  It’s possible the Nats could see “red flags” about Clippard’s future production that aren’t obvious to most observers, especially given that Clippard had another strong season in 2014.

NL East Notes: Phillies, Nats Payroll, Cosart, Ichiro

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Pat Gillick is a curious choice to serve as the Phillies’ president, writes David Murphy of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Murphy feels that the decision to move David Montgomery from president to chairman, with Gillick remaining president, was little more than a cosmetic change to buy time before a larger restructuring. That, he writes, would seem to suggest that GM Ruben Amaro Jr. is capable of doing something to save his job, as the reason for that evaluation would be to determine which of these three options are the best: replace Amaro, extend Amaro, or hire a new permanent president and let that newcomer determine the front office situation. As Murphy notes, no evaluation of the moves Amaro will make over the coming months will be able to be judged immediately (he’ll be acquiring prospects that will take years to properly evaluate), making the recent shuffle all the more puzzling. Gillick has expressed no interest in overseeing a lengthy rebuild, per Murphy, who adds that he may not be well-equipped to do so anyway based on his lack of success in the draft.

Other items pertaining to the National League East:

  • The Nationals are nearing — and will likely exceed — $160MM in Opening Day commitments for the coming season, writes Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post. That would put the team amongst the five highest salary tabs in the league, a level of spending that seemed hard to imagine in the not-so-distant past. GM Mike Rizzo told MLBTR at the GM Meetings that the organization would make baseball decisions without payroll restrictions, and that has indeed seemed largely to be the case.
  • Marlins righty Jarred Cosart is now represented by agent Erik Burkhardt, ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick tweets. Burkhardt is best known, perhaps, for repping NFL quarterback (and recent MLB draftee) Johnny Manziel. Cosart had previously been a client of Excel Sports Management. The 24-year-old will not be arbitration eligible until after the 2016 campaign.
  • There is no denying the excellence that Ichiro Suzuki has displayed over his outstanding career, but it is fair to ask what kind of production — and presence — he will deliver to the Marlins in 2015. Crasnick spoke with various talent evaluators and executives around the game, with the consensus seeming to be that Ichiro is certainly still capable of being a useful big league player.

NL East Notes: Gillick, Ichiro, Janssen

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Today featured some important front office moves for a Phillies club that is facing some significant challenges — albeit with quite substantial resources — in the coming years. The team announced that longtime executive David Montgomery will return from a health-related hiatus to become the organization’s chairman, while current president Pat Gillick will retain that role.

Here’s the latest out of Philadelphia and the rest of the NL East:

  • Gillick leaves the impression that he is prepared to stay on board past the coming season, per Kevin Cooney of the Bucks County Courier Times (Twitter links). “I’ll do it as long as it is a challenge to me and [I am] capable of doing it,” said Gillick. “Age is just a number.” The 77-year-old Hall of Fame inductee reiterated that sentiment, and then some, in speaking with Todd Zolecki of MLB.com. “I’m going to probably stay in this position as long as ownership wants me to stay in it,” he said. Emphasizing that his prior expectation had been that Montgomery would return to the full-time president’s chair, Gillick said that he is “not really setting a timetable” on his time in office, though he does not expect to be “a long, long-term replacement.”
  • While Gillick has obviously earned quite a bit of respect over his years in the game, David Murphy of the Philadelphia Daily News asks whether he really is the right man for to lead a rebuild at this juncture. While moving veteran assets for the best return possible is a straightforward-enough function, says Murphy, it will be much more tricky to make the right decisions in applying Philadelphia’s financial might to acquire the right new talent. Though Gillick oversaw many winning clubs, and adeptly constructed big league rosters, Murphy also points out that the organizations he guided tended not to be set up well for the long haul and that the baseline circumstances (rules, modes of analysis, and the like) were quite different in his heyday.
  • The Marlins obviously were interested in adding Ichiro Suzuki as a veteran presence to their young outfield and hopefully getting a late-career renaissance from an all-time great ballplayer, but the club also was interested in his nationality, as Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald reports. President of baseball operations Michael Hill and president David Samson both emphasized the fact that Ichiro’s Japanese heritage was a factor in his signing. Indeed, the front office traveled to Tokyo to announced the deal. “It’s a bonus he’s a Hall of Famer and a Japanese player,” said Samson, who noted that Miami was one of only two teams (the Reds being the other) that had yet to employ a Japanese ballplayer. (For what it’s worth, Cincinnati has fielded a Korean player.)
  • Bringing in veteran reliever Casey Janssen fills the final hole for the Nationals, writes MLB.com’s Phil Rogers. The veteran should slot in nicely in a setup capacity while also providing some insurance in the closer position, says Rogers.

NL Notes: Nats, D’Backs, Rockies

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Former Nationals minor leaguer Justin Bloxom transitioned quickly from a stalled playing career to re-joining the organization as a scout, Chelsea James of the Washington Post writes. The eleventh-rounder was part of a productive 2009 draft for the team, which will now hope to extract value from him in a somewhat different manner.

  • The Diamondbacks are comfortable with their budget sitting in the low-$90MM range, GM Dave Stewart tells MLB.com’s Steve Gilbert. Arizona is open to moving more salary but will not sacrifice on-field performance to do so, per Stewart. The most likely avenue to savings, says Gilbert, would be shedding some portion of the large tabs owed righty Trevor Cahill and outfielder Cody Ross.
  • Rockies GM Jeff Bridich says that it is “highly, highly unlikely” that the team will make a deal involving either of the club’s two biggest stars (Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez), Jon Morosi of FOX Sports tweets. That is no surprise, of course: there have always been multiple, significant barriers to a deal this offseason, and any earlier momentum seems to have died in recent weeks.
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