As the final weeks of the offseason continue their slow creep towards Spring Training, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:
1. Royals, Chapman deal to be made official soon?
Anne Rogers of MLB.com reports that Aroldis Chapman’s physical with the Royals is expected to be completed this week. If it hasn’t already happened, it could be conducted as soon as today, and Chapman’s one-year contract with the Royals could be made official any day now. Chapman, who had been among the best closers in baseball for over a decade, has suffered a steep decline in recent years, culminating in a 2022 season that was his first below average year by ERA+. Kansas City is hoping for a return to form for the lefty flamethrower, whose fastball still played in the upper 90s with 81st percentile spin rate last season despite the diminished results.
2. After dealing Irvin, who remains for the A’s to shop?
Yesterday, the A’s dealt Cole Irvin to the Orioles, reinforcing the fact that virtually no one on the big league roster in Oakland is unavailable. With Irvin and catcher Sean Murphy both out the door, are there other moves left to make? The most obvious trade candidate would be Ramon Laureano, but the club is reportedly not pursuing a trade of their most established outfielder after a difficult 2022 season, perhaps in hopes that he can build his value back up during the 2023 campaign.
Right-hander Paul Blackburn and second baseman/outfielder Tony Kemp are the only two other arbitration-level players left on the roster, making each of them at least speculative candidates to be moved. Kemp, in particular, is set to become a free agent after the 2023 and could be interesting to clubs in need of middle infield help ahead of Opening Day. Looking elsewhere on the roster, both Seth Brown and A.J. Puk could make sense as trade candidates. Both players are set to be eligible for arbitration next offseason, as Irvin was, and each is coming off a strong season in 2022.
3. The rest of the Rays’ arb class
The Rays have more arbitration work left to do than any team in the league, as they exchanged figures with a whopping seven players two weeks ago. Most teams employ a “file and trial” approach, meaning that once figures are exchanged, talks on one-year contracts cease. Those clubs will typically remain open to discussing multi-year arrangements, however, which is what happened with the Rays and lefty Jeffrey Springs earlier this week. Spring agreed to a four-year, $31MM contract that buys out a pair of free-agent seasons.
That still leaves six pending cases for the Rays. Infielder Yandy Diaz (requested $6.3MM to the Rays’ $5.5MM), first baseman/outfielder Harold Ramirez ($2.2MM vs. $1.9MM), lefty Colin Poche ($1.3MM vs. $1.175MM), righty Pete Fairbanks ($1.9MM vs. $1.5MM), righty Ryan Thompson ($1.2MM vs. $1MM) and righty Jason Adam ($1.775MM vs. $1.55MM) all have unresolved arbitration situations. Arbitration hearings typically begin in February, so there’s still a bit of time for Tampa Bay to hammer out multi-year deals for any of these six. To be clear, that doesn’t necessarily mean a long-term extension like the one signed by Springs, either. It’s commonplace for teams and players to agree to contracts that buy out multiple arbitration seasons but don’t extend team control. We’ve already seen a few such instances this offseason, with Tomas Nido inking a two-year deal with the Mets and Austin Voth signing a for a year plus an option with the Orioles just yesterday.
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