DODGERS NEWS/RUMORS thread

moroNsi so fwiw...

Tribe, Dodgers discussing possible Kluber deal
by Jon Paul Morosi | MLB.com — 2 hours ago

Discussions continue between the Dodgers and Indians about a blockbuster trade that could result in a two-time Cy Young Award winner joining Clayton Kershaw in the Los Angeles rotation.

Sources say the Dodgers and Indians have discussed various trade proposals in recent days. One such possibility involves Cleveland ace Corey Kluber going to Los Angeles in a deal that includes Yasiel Puig.

The Dodgers would need to add at least one significant player in addition to Puig in order for the Indians to seriously consider moving Kluber, one source said Wednesday. MLB Network insider Ken Rosenthal was first to report the talks between the Dodgers and Indians.

In addition to Puig, the Dodgers have catching-prospect depth and would likely be willing to move left-hander Alex Wood and right-handed prospect Yadier Alvarez, who was just recently added to Los Angeles' 40-man roster.

The availability of Kluber and fellow right-handers Carlos Carrasco and Trevor Bauer reflects realities of Cleveland's market size and current roster. A trade involving one starter would allow Indians officials to add young talent to an experienced core while freeing up payroll space to pursue necessary outfield and bullpen upgrades.

For now, sources say the Indians are maintaining high price tags on Kluber, Carrasco, and Bauer, and are not yet close to making a major trade. Including team options, Bauer and Carrasco are under club control through 2020, and Kluber through '21.

The Brewers and Braves are two more potential trade partners for the Indians if they move a starter. While the Braves and Indians are not currently in active talks, one source said, Atlanta has pitching prospects (including right-hander Kyle Wright) that appeal to Cleveland. The Brewers possess both young pitching depth and outfielders (Corey Ray and Keon Broxton) who fit the Indians' needs.

Kluber has finished among the top 10 in American League Cy Young Award balloting in each of the last five seasons -- including four times in the top three. He's one of only two Major League pitchers to throw 1,000 regular-season innings since 2014. Max Scherzer is the other.

Kluber, who turns 33 in April, avoided the disabled list in 2018, but he required a pain-relieving injection in his right knee at the All-Star break in order to make it through the second half. Kluber started two games on short rest in the 2016 World Series; he is winless with a 10.64 ERA in three playoff starts since then.​

 

nosler

Marcus Stroman could be a sneaky trade target for Dodgers
THERE'S A LOT TO LIKE, EVEN AFTER A DOWN SEASON
by Dustin Nosler | True Blue LA — 28 November 2018

The hot stove is a bit cold for the Dodgers right now. Ken Rosenthal linked them to some of the available Cleveland players (Yan Gomes, Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco), and a report on Monday (and earlier in the offseason) linked them to former Rockies’ second baseman DJ LeMahieu. But one name that hasn’t been brought up just yet is Marcus Stroman.

Stroman, 27, has been the anchor of the Blue Jays’ pitching staff for two of the last three seasons. And while he might not be available at the moment, he should be a target for Andrew Friedman.

Let’s be real: Toronto’s contention window slammed shut last season. They couldn’t get over the hump and are staring at baseball’s toughest division — the 108-win and World Series champion Red Sox, the 100-win Yankees and the 90-win Rays. The Jays are firmly entrenched as the fourth-best team in that division and even Vladimir Guerrero, Jr., can’t make them true contenders. So, now might be the best time to consider moving Stroman, even coming off a bit of a rough season.

The argument could be made he could fetch almost as much at the trade deadline — and possibly more if he gets back to his normal ways — but that’s a risk the Blue Jays would have to assess and see if it makes sense. Getting a half-season’s worth of development in the organization of young players and/or prospects might outweigh the potential benefit of betting on Stroman to rebound.

Stroman is a free agent following the 2020 season, and moving starters with two years of team control remaining seems to be more of the norm. James Paxton was just traded to the Yankees last week. If given a strong offer, a team like the Jays should consider trading Stroman.

What makes him so attractive? He gets a lot of ground balls. Among all starters in 2018 with at least 100 innings pitched (he threw 102 1/3), he led MLB in ground ball rate at 62.1 percent — 5.3 percent higher than the next-best mark (Clayton Richard). Not sold on it because of the sample size? Since his debut in 2014, only old friend Brett Anderson has a better ground ball rate ... by a tenth of a percent (60.2 to 60.1).

What’s interesting is that Stroman is running a BABIP (.307) just slightly north of the MLB average in that time (.299). He’s also doing a solid job of limiting hard contact, as he owns an 89.1 MPH average exit velocity for his career.

The Dodgers put an emphasis on acquiring more ground ball-minded pitchers for the 2018 season. Scott Alexander, JT Chargois, Dylan Floro ... even John Axford all had ground ball rates above-average. Axford didn’t help the bottom line much, but they other three did. They, coupled with a full season of Walker Buehler, helped the Dodgers pitching staff produce its best ground ball rate in the last three seasons. Adding a guy like Stroman to the lot could only help keep the ball in park a little bit more.

Stroman is good at that, too. He has a 0.81 HR/9 in his career — 15th-best in the game since he debuted and the best since the 2015 season that saw him appear in just four games because of a torn ACL. The only thing missing are strikeouts.

He’ll miss bats at time, but not at a pace we’re used to seeing out of Dodger pitchers. He has a career 19.3 K%. Not bad, but not great, either. He posted the lowest K% of his career in 2018 (17.2 percent), but there is an explanation for it: His slider.

Stroman’s slider had been a positive pitch every season until 2018. According to FanGraphs’ pitch value statistic, it was +10.9 runs above average in 2017 and +4.9 the season before. In 2018, that number plummeted to -1.1. His curveball and cutter ticked up a bit, but his changeup also went the same direction as his slider. While his changeup is used sparingly, his slider was his second-most used pitch last season.

The whiff rate on the slider dipped from 20.95 percent in 2017 to 14.88 percent last season. The cutter and changeup whiff rates dipped roughly 4 points each, while his curveball ticked up almost 3 points. But let’s look at his slider a little more.

The horizontal movement on the pitch — key for a slider — wasn’t dissimilar to what it was in 2017, but the vertical release point is where the problem lies.



He’s releasing the slider at a higher point, which has contributed to his slider ending up in the strike zone more frequently.




That’ll account for the diminished effectiveness of the slider. As his primary offspeed pitch, he’ll have to get the vertical release point figured out. And as we’ve seen with pitchers coming into the organization in years past (Joe Blanton, Tony Cingrani, to name a couple), the Dodgers are pretty good at getting pitchers to make the necessary adjustments on their sliders.

Adding Stroman would also allow the Dodgers to more easily trade from their starting pitching depth to address other needs. Alex Wood is the most likely guy to be moved (even if they don’t add another starting pitcher). They could also sell relatively high on Ross Stripling, should a team be demanding him in a deal to improve elsewhere. Stroman’s upside, even without elite strikeout numbers, is higher than either of them and anyone on the starting staff not named Buehler, Clayton Kershaw or Hyun-Jin Ryu (and Julio Urias, if he comes back healthy). With Rich Hill, Ryu and Wood slated to be free agents after the 2019 season and a lack of solid upper-level minor-league pitching, it might be a good time to acquire a starting pitcher with some controllable seasons remaining.

The acquisition cost shouldn’t be terribly high. I’m not saying the Blue Jays are just going to give him away after a bit of a down season, but you could expect an outfielder (Joc Pederson, DJ Peters, Andrew Toles, Alex Verdugo, et al), a young pitcher (Yadier Alvarez, Dustin May, Dennis Santana, Jordan Sheffield, Edwin Uceta, Mitchell White) and a lower-level prospect (Jacob Amaya, Ronny Brito, Robinson Ortiz, Carlos Rincon) could get some conversation going.

Stroman wouldn’t be the sexiest pitcher the Dodgers could acquire, but they could certainly do a lot worse, if they’re insistent on adding a starting pitcher.

 

• The Dodgers have struck a deal with lefty Tony Cingrani to avoid arbitration, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (via Twitter). It’ll include a guaranteed, $2.65MM salary, per the report. Standard arbitration contracts are not fully guaranteed, so obviously something spurred the Dodgers to do so in this case. The salary does not fall far from the $2.7MM MLBTR projection, but his reps at Dishman Sports Group may have been able to argue for more. The 29-year-old Cingrani only managed to throw 22 2/3 MLB innings in 2018, and carried an unsightly 4.76 ERA. It sounds funny to say it, but he was otherwise quite impressive. Cingrani racked up 14.3 K/9 with just 2.4 BB/9 while drawing grounders on half of the balls put in play against him. And he drew swings and misses at a career-best 13.8% rate.

 

no thanks [racist]...

Reds to Non-Tender Billy Hamilton
by Steve Adams | MLB Trade Rumors — 18 minutes ago

The Reds are planning to non-tender center fielder Billy Hamilton, reports C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic (via Twitter). He’ll become a free agent and will be eligible to sign with any team once the move is official.

Hamilton, who turned 28 in September, was arbitration-eligible for the final time this winter and had been projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to earn $5.9MM in 2019. Instead, he’ll hit the open market in search of a new organization after spending the first 10 seasons of his professional career in the Cincinnati organization.

It’s a surprising bit of news for Hamilton even in spite of the defensive standout’s ongoing struggles at the plate. Reds owner Bob Castellini has previously gone on record to state that he hoped Hamilton would be a Red “forever” (Twitter link via Jerry Crasnick), and the organization has rebuffed trade interest in the speedster in each of the past two offseasons.

It seems, however, that the organization simply no longer feels that the benefit of Hamilton’s glove and premium baserunning skills are worth the lack of offense that has become synonymous with Hamilton’s name. Though he was long touted as one of the game’s premier prospects due to his 80-grade speed, Hamilton has mustered just a .244/.297/.332 batting line in five seasons since becoming a regular with Cincinnati back in 2014. That production is even more questionable when considering the fact that Hamilton plays his home games in Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park, which is one of baseball’s most hitter-friendly settings; both OPS+ and wRC+ indicate that when adjusting for that hitter-friendly home park, Hamilton’s offense has been a full 30 percent worse than that of a league-average hitter.

To his credit, Hamilton has stolen more than 50 bases on four different occasions and, even in a “down” year in that regard, swiped 34 bags last season. He’s also delivered a whopping 51 Defensive Runs Saved in Center Field, which is largely backed up by a +45.5 Ultimate Zone Rating in his big league career. Statcast’s newest outfield defensive metric, Outs Above Average, only goes back three seasons but still feels that Hamilton has recorded a staggering 52 outs more than a league-average center fielder would generate, based on catch probability data.

At 28 years of age, it seems unlikely that Hamilton will ever develop into a bona fide offensive threat, though it’s certainly not out of the question that a change of scenery could bring about some improvement at the plate. He’ll likely have no shortage of interested teams inquire with his representatives at Wasserman, and the sheer extent of his baserunning and defensive value makes him a likely candidate to land a big league deal elsewhere.

For the Reds, the move opens up roughly $6MM of payroll next season — a relatively small but not insignificant sum as the organization aggressively pursues rotation upgrades. Cincinnati is reportedly even intrigued by top-of-the-market options, most recently being tied to Dallas Keuchel, though it remains to be seen if they can convince a top-tier name to sign on to pitch at Great American Ball Park for a club that hasn’t had a winning season since 2013. Certainly, the added payroll space can’t hurt.

Of course, the Reds now also have a need in center field that may need to go outside the organization to fill. There’s been talk of moving top prospect Nick Senzel to the outfield, though injuries limited the former No. 2 overall pick to 44 games in 2018 and his pro experience has come exclusively in the infield. Scott Schebler has a bit of experience in center field but has traditionally been more of a corner option, while Jesse Winker has been regarded primarily as a left fielder himself. Phil Ervin and Jose Siri represent other options, but given that the Reds hope to take a step toward being more competitive in 2019, it seems likely that they’ll pursue a more established option.​

 

morosi so fwiw...

Jon Morosi ✔@jonmorosi
#Mets and #Dodgers have trade interest in #Indians catcher Yan Gomes,
sources confirm. It's unclear how the expected Cano/Diaz deal impacts
#Mets ability to obtain Gomes. @MLB @MLBNetwork
7:44 AM - Nov 30, 2018​

 

Today is the deadline for the Los Angeles Dodgers to tender contracts to 10 players on the 40-man roster. If not tendered, the players will become free agents. Here are the 10 players, along with their projected salary for 2019:

• Yasiel Puig (5.102) – $11.3MM
• Alex Wood (5.123) – $9.0MM
• Joc Pederson (4.028) – $4.3MM
• Enrique Hernandez (4.054) – $3.2MM
• Chris Taylor (3.037) – $3.2MM
• Josh Fields (5.083) – $2.8MM
• Tony Cingrani (5.088) – $2.7MM arbitration avoided, re-signed
• Corey Seager (3.032) – $2.6MM
• Pedro Baez (4.059) – $1.8MM
• Yimi Garcia (3.149) – $900K

Courtesy of MLB Trade Rumors.