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Head of the Major League Baseball Players Association Tony Clark isn’t pleased that there are a number of free agents still on the market with spring training just around the corner. 

Pitchers and catchers report to spring training as early as Feb. 17, and some big names like outfielder Dexter Fowler, shortstop Ian Desmond and first baseman Pedro Alvarez are still looking for new deals. 

Clark spoke with the Associated Press, via ESPN.com. 

I think it’s disappointing when there are as many talented players still without a home. I don’t think it’s in anyone’s best interest to be in a world where very talented players are at home for whatever reason they are there. It will likely be a part of the conversation in bargaining.

Per the AP, Fowler, Desmond and pitcher Yovani Gallardo all turned down one-year, $15.8 million qualifying offers from their respective teams in November, and they are still without a team.

Here are the list of players that received qualifying offers this offseason, per MLB.com’s Doug Miller:

The 43-year-old Clark is the first player to ever lead the union and has a big task facing him. Clark will begin to negotiate for a new labor contract on Dec. 1 when the old deal expires.

The last deal was signed in November 2011 when some big changes were made. The new playoff format that had the Wild Card Game was included along with the declaration that the Houston Astros would move to the American League in 2013. 

What concerns Clark is what commissioner Rob Manfred, who at the time was head labor negotiator, per the AP, wrote regarding qualifying offers extended toward free agents. 

The AP described what he wrote.

[Manfred] estimated eight to 10 free agents annually would receive qualifying offers — the average of the 125 highest-paying contracts — which attaches the loss of a top amateur draft pick for a team that signs a new player. There were nine offers in 2012 and the number climbed to 13 the following year, 12 in 2014 and 20 this offseason, when there was a deep free-agent class.

Clark believes that this notion is “damaging the concept of competitive balance.” 

With the rules in place, it takes a lot for another team to sign a free agent. Not only does it carry the possibility of overpaying for a free agent, but the loss of a high draft pick is a price too steep for many teams. 

Because of those rules, players stay on the market longer and have less time to assimilate to the new team that they sign with. It could have a big effect on their numbers and damage their chances to succeed in their new setting.

Clark has plenty of time to prepare, though, as negotiations don’t start for more than eight months. Even so, one can expect that this issue will be at the top of his list of points to discuss. 

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Free-agent first baseman Pedro Alvarez is still without a team as spring training rapidly approaches. 

Continue for updates.

O’s Showing Interest

Wednesday, Feb. 10

According to Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal, the Baltimore Orioles “like” Alvarez, per sources. 

The 29-year-old is looking for a new home for his seventh major league season after six with the Pittsburgh Pirates. A 2013 All-Star selection, he led the National League with 36 home runs that season; teams interested in Alvarez know what they will get from him. 

He’s a feast-or-famine type of hitter at the plate, as he’s hit at least 27 home runs in seasons when he’s played at least 149 games, but he hasn’t batted better than .244 in those seasons.

Alvarez did show improvement in the strikeout department, though. After striking out over 180 times in 2012 and 2013, Alvarez only did so 131 times in 2015. 

He brings some big-time pop to the middle of any lineup and is capable of crushing the ball.

However, the Orioles don’t necessarily need Alvarez, who has played first and third base during his career with the Pirates. Baltimore re-signed slugging first baseman Chris Davis this offseason to a seven-year, $161 million deal, per Spotrac, and has third baseman Manny Machado bringing a power bat and a Gold Glove to the hot corner. 

Last year, Machado launched 35 home runs, and the Orioles have Mark Trumbo to complement Davis. Alvarez could be an option at designated hitter but would be rotating with Davis and Trumbo for at-bats there. 

If he is comfortable with not having a set position on the field and in Baltimore’s lineup, then Alvarez could bring even more power to the Orioles as they look to contend for the American League East.   

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.

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According to Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune, citing sources, the San Diego Padres signed utility man Skip Schumaker to a minor league deal on Tuesday.   

As a part of the deal, Schumaker will be invited to major league spring training.

Preparing for his 12th season, Schumaker hit the free-agent market this offseason when the Cincinnati Reds declined a $2.5 million club option, per Lin. 

The 36-year-old made his biggest impact with the St. Louis Cardinals, where he spent the first eight years of his career.

A slap hitter, he provided two seasons of over 150 games in which he batted over .300 from 2008-2009. He also came off of the bench as a part of the Cardinals’ World Series-winning team in 2011 and batted .380 in the playoffs. 

In those 2008 and 2009 seasons, Schumaker appeared in the top 10 among all hitters in singles.

While on the back end of his career with stops in Los Angeles with the Dodgers and with the Reds, Schumaker still provided a lift to his team despite his lack of playing time. 

He holds a career .278 average with a .337 on-base percentage and 905 hits.

Schumaker can play second base as well as the outfield, and according to Lin, he is expected to compete for a roster spot with the big club on the bench. 

Lin noted that 24-year-old Cory Spangenberg will be the favorite for the job at second base, with Alexi Amarista and Jose Pirela backing him up. Bringing in Schumaker, though, creates another option for the Padres at second base in case any of those three struggle during spring training. 

In an outfield that also lost Justin Upton to the Detroit Tigers this offseason, Schumaker can add some depth coming off the bench behind the likes of Matt Kemp, Melvin Upton and John Jay. Along with his winning experience with the Cardinals, Schumaker will be a nice addition to the Padres clubhouse if he’s able to make the team. 

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.

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The Toronto Blue Jays announced on Saturday they have hired Eric Wedge as the team’s new player development adviser. 

Wedge spent 10 seasons as a big league manager with the Cleveland Indians from 2003-2009 and the Seattle Mariners from 2011-2013.   

He posted a career record of 774-846 in that span, where he won the 2007 American League Manager of the Year Award after leading the Indians to a 96-66 season. 

However, it was only one of two winning seasons that he ever posted. 

Wedge hasn’t been in the league since his falling out with the Mariners after three years with the team. Posting a 213-273 record with them, Wedge went after the front office in an article by Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times. 

Instead of finding a new job in the dugout, Wedge headed to the studio where he worked with ESPN’s Baseball Tonight. Over that span, he’s impressed TSN’s Gareth Wheeler: 

While he’ll be working closely with the Blue Jays roster, there are some, like TSN’s Steve Simmons, who believe that there will be an expanded role for him at some point:

Current Toronto manager John Gibbons should not be going anywhere soon, though. The Blue Jays are coming off of their best season since 1993, in which they won 93 games and pushed the eventual World Series champion Kansas City Royals to six games in the ALCS. 

But if the Blue Jays aren’t putting up good results in 2016 and are looking to make a change, there is always a managerial option in Wedge. Though a power-laden roster with improved pitching doesn’t suggest that will happen any time soon. 

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com

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The Toronto Blue Jays will be installing a dirt infield at the Rogers Centre for 2016, per a Wednesday report by Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi. 

The Toronto stadium has had an artificial or a synthetic surface as its field since opening in 1989. 

Toronto is just one of two major league ballparks that have synthetic turf. The other is the Tampa Bay Rays‘ Tropicana Field.

Blue Jays senior vice president of business operations Stephen Brooks told Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet that “this will both improve the surface for the players and also enhance the atmosphere of the stadium for our fans.“

Per Nicholson-Smith, the team will “excavate parts of the cement floor at Rogers Centre by 12 inches.” The infield dirt will be placed in those excavated areas.

There has been some dirt on the infield in prior seasons but only surrounding each base. This gave baserunners an area to slide. But synthetic material covered a majority of the basepaths.

The Blue Jays put in new turf prior to the 2015 season, per Ted Berg of USA Today, but it caused some problems, as Jeff Blair of Sportsnet detailed:

Word is already out: the new Rogers Centre turf is some sort of living, breathing, bringer of erratic stuff. It’s where ground balls go to die, at least until it gets worn in… Blue Jays manager John Gibbons suggested before the game that the new surface could be an equalizer, given the way the home runs usually fly out of the Rogers Centre. One Blue Jays player noted that ‘it’s almost like they’ve given us a new stadium, or at least a place that plays like a different stadium.’

Fox Sports’ Jon Morosi reported in April that MLB was monitoring things at the Rogers Centre. 

“MLB is actively monitoring the turf situation at Rogers Centre due to irregular bounces on the surface, source says,” Morosi tweeted. “MLB has not arrived at any conclusions or resolutions about Rogers Centre turf, but [the] league [is] concerned about anything affecting fair play.”

At the Rogers Centre, ground balls hit with speed maintained the same kind of pace, and anything hit with a spin would take odd hops on the turf, which put fielders at a disadvantage. It even played a part in some big games last season, as seen in the video below:

While the dirt infield doesn’t completely solve the problem, it will give fielders a better chance to react to balls hit toward them. On dirt, the number of odd hops will likely decrease and resemble more of a normal infield encountered in most other major league ballparks. 

However, the synthetic turf will still be lying where grass normally should on baseball fields. For the Blue Jays and the Rogers Centre, replacing the synthetic turf should be the next step toward creating an authentic field for fair competition. 

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With arbitration looming, Kansas City Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas still does not have a new contract. 

Continue for updates.

Moustakas and Royals Have Had Dialogue 

Friday, Jan. 29

Moustakas told MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan that he and the Royals have discussed a two-year contract.

This is nothing new for Moustakas and the Royals. Both parties avoided arbitration last season when he signed a one-year, $2.6 million deal per Spotrac.com.

It was quite a last season for him, too. Moustakas was selected to his first All-Star game in his five-year career after achieving career highs with a .282 batting average, 22 home runs and 82 RBI.

In seasons in which he played over 100 games, the 27-year-old had never batted over .242 until 2015.

He was one of the centerpieces of a Royals team that won its first World Series in 29 years, beating the New York Mets in five games.  

While he and the Royals are flying high this offseason, they have had a lot of work to do in order to find him a new deal, per Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Passan on Jan. 15:

Moustakas is just one of the pieces that embodies what the Royals are all about. He possesses a blue collar mentality and doesn’t bring anything flashy to his play at the hot corner. 

The Royals are not a team of superstars. They’re just a unit of solid players who know how to give their all for one another and find ways to win games.

So far, the Royals have done well this offseason to hold onto their core after their championship. While they lost Ben Zobrist to the Cubs, they managed to retain long-time Royal Alex Gordon with a four-year, $72 million deal. 

They also avoided arbitration with outfielder Lorenzo Cain with a two-year, $17.5 million contract earlier in January. 

After the year the Royals had and what Moustakas brings to the chemistry of this team, Kansas City should make it a priority to get on the same page with their third baseman. He is right in the prime of his career and looks like he is only getting better so they should lock him up for the foreseeable future. 

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com

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Veteran second baseman Howie Kendrick re-signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday, according to Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal. MLB Network’s Jon Heyman confirmed the news.

According to Heyman, the deal is worth $20 million over two years. 

After spending nine years with the Los Angeles Angels, Kendrick was traded across town, spending the final year of his four-year, $33.5 million deal with the Dodgers. 

He encountered a nagging hamstring injury that forced him to miss 35 straight games, and he split time at second base toward the end of the season with the newly acquired Chase Utley. He still put up a .295 average with nine home runs and 54 RBI—numbers very similar to his career averages. 

Often the No. 2 hitter in a lineup due to his excellent bat control, Kendrick, 32, is a solid veteran presence who will continue to help the Dodgers. 

He was previously linked to the Washington Nationals, but they signed former New York Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy instead.

After Murphy signed, the market around Kendrick went quiet for more than a month. Then Heyman reported earlier Friday that the Arizona Diamondbacks, along with the Dodgers, were interested.

In staying with the Dodgers, Kendrick will be a great table-setter for Justin Turner, Adrian Gonzalez and L.A.’s other middle-of-the-order hitters.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com 

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Cincinnati Reds center fielder Billy Hamilton is recovering from a torn labrum he suffered back in September.

Continue for updates.  

Hamilton On Track for Spring Training

Thursday, Jan. 28

Hamilton updated Mark Sheldon of MLB.com on the progress of his right shoulder, which he had surgically repaired during the offseason.

“The rehab is coming along well,” Hamilton said Thursday. “I’m not 100 percent yet, but close to it. We had a schedule to be ready right around spring training. As of right now, we’re on track to make that happen.”

He told Sheldon that he is fully “throwing, hitting [and] lifting weights,” claiming that he’s “not limited or anything” and that his “shoulder feels good.”

“I’m looking forward to getting out to Arizona and doing more stuff. I haven’t been able to do much stuff out on the field because of the weather,” Hamilton said. “It’s a process you don’t want to rush. I could go out there and long toss, but there’s no point in doing it right now. They want to make sure everything is healed.”

The Reds’ leadoff man experienced a down year during his second full season in the major leagues. One of the speediest players in the game, Hamilton batted just .226 in 114 games with a .274 on-base percentage. 

Despite his difficulties getting on base, Hamilton still swiped a career-best 57 bases, a number that would have been much higher had he not run into shoulder issues.

He realizes that too, as he told Sheldon. 

“[The results] were nowhere near where I wanted them to be,” Hamilton said. “Baseball is a game where if you set a goal and don’t get it, you have to do something in the offseason to make that goal happen the next year. I feel like this is a new year and I’ll do better.”

For a Reds team that ranked 26th in the majors last season with just 3.95 runs per game, it’ll need a player like Hamilton to find his way on base and help manufacture runs for the team.

Too often in 2015, a big bat like Joey Votto was coming up to the plate with the bases empty. It would be a huge help to the team if Hamilton made some noise ahead of him and was able to wreak some havoc on the basepath.  

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.

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Boston Red Sox third baseman Pablo Sandoval, nicknamed “Kung Fu Panda,” has long drawn attention due to his weight. It rarely got in the way of his performance on the field, but Sandoval’s first season of a five-year, $95 million deal with the Red Sox was the worst of his eight-year career. 

In October, the team asked Sandoval to drop some weight, per Ricky Doyle of NESN.com. 

As Red Sox manager John Farrell told CSN’s Sean McAdam on Wednesday, Sandoval has made changes on the scale this offseason along with teammate Hanley Ramirez, who also struggled last year.

“Right now he’s roughly 20 pounds lighter than the last game he played for us in 2015,” he said. “I know for a fact that both guys (Sandoval and Ramirez) went into the offseason with some clear markers, with some clear goals to achieve from a physical standpoint. Both are doing that.”

While Farrell’s visit with Ramirez in Florida earlier in January was documented, per Christopher Smith of MassLive.com, the Red Sox manager revealed to McAdam that he also spoke with Sandoval. 

“I can tell you this—after meeting with Hanley, I spent another day or so with Pablo,” Farrell said. “Pablo’s extremely eager to get back. He feels like he’s got to make amends for a year ago and is eager to do just that.”

In 2015, Sandoval batted a career-low .245 with 10 home runs and 47 RBI. He had never batted below .268 in his seven years with the San Francisco Giants.

Sandoval, whom ESPN.com lists at 5’11”, 255 pounds, looked like he wasn’t near that number last season. He’s lost weight before in his career, dropping 22 pounds during the 2013 season, per CSNBayArea.com’s Andrew Baggarly.

Baseball fans will be able to see if the lost weight helps Sandoval regain his previous success at the plate soon enough, as teams will report to spring training in February. But it will be just as important for the third baseman to keep the weight off for an extended period of time and become a trustworthy presence at the hot corner. 

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.

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The Milwaukee Brewers could be dealing outfielder/third baseman Ryan Braun at some point this offseason. 

Continue for updates.

Market Nonexistent For Braun

Thursday, Jan. 21

MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reported on Thursday that there is “not much trade action” on Braun so far, as the team is first focusing on other players, such as catcher Jonathan Lucroy.

Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on Jan. 7 that “the Brewers would not hesitate to move Braun and his five-year, $105 million contract extension that kicks in next year if a sensible offer surfaced.”

However because of Braun’s past that includes performance-enhancing drug allegations and because of a “significant no-trade protection in [Braun’s] contract,” Haudricourt believes a deal for him is highly unlikely. 

Before his PED problems in 2013 that saw him play in just 61 games because of a suspension, Braun was one of the most consistent power hitters in the league, launching over 30 home runs in five of his first six seasons, which included a 2011 MVP award and a league-leading 41 bombs in 2012. 

In 2014 and 2015, Braun hit 19 and 25 home runs, respectively. While it isn’t a bad output, it’s still a noticeable drop-off after a PED suspension. 

If his contract weren’t so large, maybe some teams would be willing to take a chance on him. But if a team is going to pick up that deal, it’d obviously want a pre-2013 Braun in the middle of its lineup. 

Power numbers aside, Braun is still capable of finding his way on base. He’s had an on-base percentage of over .350 in seven of his nine big league seasons. With his diminished power, he is still a prime candidate to bat third in a lot of lineups, as he still has some pop in his bat. 

His ability to play two positions also adds defensive versatility if a roster is hit by the injury bug. The problem is he is prone to missing time; he hasn’t played in 150 games or more since 2012. 

The negatives are stacked against the Brewers and their hopes of moving on from Braun, and it looks like they realize that, too. That’s why they are trying to deal others in an attempt to build up their roster. Milwaukee’s best chance to deal Braun might be floating him out on the market and hoping there is a team that is willing to make an acceptable offer. 

For now, though, those who want Braun out of a Brewers uniform shouldn’t be holding their breath.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.

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