The much travelled and former Giant Rajai Davis got the Hot Stove flickering back to life by agreeing to a contract with the Oakland A's. This will be Davis' second tour of duty with the A's where he enjoyed the two best seasons of his career in 2008 and 2009. His most recent stop was Cleveland where he hit a memorable HR off Aroldis Chapman in the World Series. His overall stat line for the Indians was .249/.306/.388, 23 2B, 2 3B, 12 HR, 43 SB in 495 PA. He is a slightly above average fielder in both CF and LF and still a plus-plus baserunner despite having just completed his age 35 season.
The deal is for 1 year/$6 M with $450 K worth of incentives. Most of the incentives are for PA's greater than 500 which he has only reached 1 time in his MLB career. Davis will likely be the starting CF for Oakland with Khris Davis manning LF and Matt Joyce in RF. Brett Eibner and Jake Smolinski 2 hitters with low BA's but a lot of power potential will compete for playing time.
Where he bats in Oakland's lineup is a bit more problematic as his career OBP of .313 makes him a less than ideal leadoff hitter. Still, SB's have value lower in the lineup too, especially in the AL where you don't have to worry about the pitcher killing rallies.
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The Cincinnati Reds finally made a significant signing by agreeing to terms with RHP Drew Storen. Storen's career has fallen on hard times and he'll be moving to another hitter-friendly environment, which does not seem like the best place to get your Closer career back on track.
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The Arizona D'Backs worked out a trade with the KC Royals for previously DFA'd Peter O'Brien. O'Brien is a former 2'nd round draft pick of the Yankees. A college catcher, his catching defense is generally regarded as being unacceptably bad. He also sports a career MLB BA well south of the Mendoza Line. His one plus attribute is power. He has 6 dingers in 79 career MLB PA's which projects to 45 per 600 PA's. An AL team like the Royals has the luxury of putting him at DH and batting him 7'th or 8'th in the lineup and being content with the dingers. Comp would be Dave Kingman.
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Just yesterday I read an article on why the Hot Stove was Dead Cold. And today you're reporting two signings. Baseball is so funny that way.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the D'Backs are suing to get out of Chase Field because, apparently, nice ball-parks placed into service in 1998 are too 'last century.' I guess they're looking to keep up with the Braves who found their 20-year-old too horrible to play in... I think they should be forced to play at the Coliseum for a few years. LEt them enjoy the sewage leaks, the run-down infrastructure, etc. and they'll change their minds pretty quick.
And now this just popped up on Bleacher Report:
ReplyDeleteMLB Hot Stove Rumors: Giants are showing interest in slugging 3B from South Korea
Jae Gyun Hwang is on San Francisco's radar
http://tinyurl.com/gsh88ga
If they sign him. And if he wins the job, Nunez could end up in LF, possibly platooning with Williamson. Anyway, it's interesting. Might be nothing but rumors.