While we wait for the 3:00 Standard Daily Event and my next chance to kill people with Anafenza, why not get closer to wrapping up the winter? Here goes.
1/6/15: Angels sign Cuban 3B/OF Roberto Baldoquin to an $8M signing bonus. Steve Adams of MLBTR covered the international signing rules in detail here, but essentially, any amount that goes over the team's allowed spending cap costs double, thanks to league taxes, and prevents the team from spending more than $300K on a player for the next two signing periods. So the Angels spent more like $14M on Baldoquin. He's 20 years old with a good line-drive swing, and low to moderate power potential. If the Angels double down and sign another high-end Cuban prospect before July 2, they could make a dent in their poor farm system rankings (28th on BP). If they don't, then we'll just know when we know.
1/7/15: Padres re-sign RHP Josh Johnson, 1 year, $1M (with incentives for games started up to $6.25M). Johnson was one of baseball's best pitchers in 2009-10 for the Marlins, but that was the only time in his career he's managed to string two healthy seasons together. Now he's 31, coming of Tommy John, and sunk so low the Padres declined their $4M club option for 2015 that they put in the contract for exactly this circumstance. As much as I love to support players who were great for the teams I like, I'd have to be high to expect anything from Johnson anymore. Good thing for the Padres that, even if he does get healthy, he won't be higher than seventh on the depth chart.
1/7/15: Braves sign RHP Jason Grilli, 2 years, $8M. Grilli was once traded from San Francisco to Florida, along with Nate Bump, for Livan Hernandez. That was almost 16 years ago and I assure you it came from my memory, not research. Grilli and Bump were and are cool names. Anyway, he still strikes guys out, and got the job done in Anaheim in the second half last year. But he's also a 38 year old reliever heading to a team that already has the best closer in baseball and doesn't project to have that many leads to protect in 2015. Lose-lose for now, but maybe this is just insurance for if Kimbrel gets traded. That would make a lot of sense.
1/7/15: Braves sign C A.J. Pierzynski, 1 year, $2M. It seems A.J. has lost the only skills he ever had- the offensive ones. This might be his last year in the show, so let me say, directly to A.J., open letter style: thanks for the best strikeout ever.
1/8/15: White Sox sign IF/OH Emilio Bonifacio, 1 year, $4M. He's fast, can play a lot of positions, and heads to a team that needs options at second and third. Cross another item off Rick Hahn's shopping list.
1/10/15: Rays trade IF/OF Ben Zobrist and SS Yunel Escobar to A's for C John Jaso, IF prospect Daniel Robertson, OF prospect Boog Powell, and cash. A's then trade Escobar to Nationals for RHP Tyler Clippard. Oh, that wacky Billy Beane. Spends the whole winter maxing out his team's minor league depth and major league versatility, and then boom, he acquires the posterboy for versatility, Ben Zobrist. As the final stroke of an often chaotic offseason, I have to say, I'm not super whelmed. Don't get me wrong, Oakland got good value on both ends of this deal- trading their top prospect for a year of a shutdown reliever and a year of baseball's secret MVP- but they already had a non-secret MVP in Josh Donaldson before all this nonsense started. This leaves a lineup of Zobrist, Josh Reddick, and Coco Crisp surrounded by a bunch of buy-low players who will have to (re)establish their value for the A's to be any good. For the Rays, Robertson brings back some future value in exchange for their 2015 chances. Maybe it was time, and no team can win forever, but we all believe Andrew Friedman could build a team. We don't know if Matt Silverman can. The Nationals are just moving parts around. The bullpen looks okay- if not dominant- without Clippard, and Escobar is a playable second baseman, which is not something they had on the roster. I guess I'll declare Oakland the winner of this trade. Ben Zobrist's skill set combined with Bob Melvin's lineup alchemy could lead to a season that breaks WAR.
1/11/15: Rays sign SS Asdrubal Cabrera, 1 year, $7.5M. Let's compare Cabrera to the guy he's replacing, Yunel Escobar. They're basically the same at the plate: below league-average, little pop, some walks. Acceptable shortstop profile. Both are worse than average defensively at the position, which is why Escobar is playing second base now and the league's general opinion is that Cabrera should be too. Cabrera is four years younger, and will make $7.5M this year before hitting free agency again whereas Escobar's contract is 2/$13M. It's hard to imagine a pair of transactions that add up so perfectly to treading water. You know, except they don't have BenZo anymore.
1/14/15: Braves trade C/OF Evan Gattis to Astros for RHP prospects Mike Foltynewicz and Andrew Thurman and 3B prospect Rio Ruiz. And Atlanta's quest to field a team without a quality bat continues. Gattis goes from one K-happy lineup in Atlanta to another in Houston, but 20+ homers two years running, while only playing about two thirds of his team's games, cannot be ignored. Make him the DH and run him out there every day, he might put up some gaudy numbers. He won't even be arb eligible until next winter, so he's got the magic combination of power and team control. Foltynewicz is a big name prospect with a bigger fastball, but you never know if a guy with control problems is going to figure it out. On the plus side, he's only 23, already has a full season at Triple-A under his belt, and guys with triple digit heat always get chances. The ceiling is very high. Ruiz will turn 21 this season, and has an advanced approach at the plate. His ceiling is limited by his speed and athleticism, but scouts think he can figure out how to play third base. While I think Atlanta's still had a good offseason altogether, El Oso Blanco is a big get for an Astros team hoping to turn the corner this year- kind of like Wil Myers, but with production instead of potential. Win to the Astros.
1/15/15: Cardinals sign RHP Lance Lynn, 3 years, $22M. The Cardinals buy out all of Lynn's arbitration years without going crazy on AAV. He's coming off a 15-win, sub-3 ERA, 3.7 WAR season, but the peripheral stats looked the same in 2013, when he was worth 1.8 WAR. He's a number 3 starter with health and good, not great, K-rates as his best attributes. That's just about what the Cardinals are paying for. If he can repeat last year's somewhat fluky run prevention, or improve as he moves through his late 20's, then this is a steal.
1/16/15: Pirates sign IF Jung-Ho Kang, 4 years, $11M. The Pirates have a team option for the fifth year at $5.5M, and they paid Kang's KBO team $5M in a posting fee. They're getting the middle and end of Kang's prime, and while opinions vary on how his power will translate at the major league level, even a 15-homer bat that can play an acceptable shortstop is worth considerably more than Pittsburgh is paying. They got him for so little that even if he's a complete bust it won't ruin things for the Pirates, and if his bat plays at the big league level, they got a borderline star. Yet another smart upside play by Neal Huntington and company.
No comments:
Post a Comment