Crown Jewels: Non-Roster Invites, ZiPS and a Trade Partner Emerges

We're down to one month of waiting to watch video of guys stretching in Arizona.

I feel like this winter, outside of the Carlos Correa saga, has been a lot more like the quick hit free agency period of other sports than in years past. For awhile, we’d see a few deals at the winter meetings and before but things were drawing out for a bit. Guys like Manny Machado and Bryce Harper didn’t sign until into spring training. Others who weren’t quite so high profile were the same. Last year was obviously different because of the lockout, but I thought maybe we’d see things drag a little bit this year. But teams pulled out their checkbooks early and made the splashes early, leaving us with scraps to talk about for the final few weeks before pitchers and catchers report.

It wouldn’t be so bad if teams would get crazy with trades now to fill in gaps that weren’t filled by free agency. I’m truly just spitballing here, but maybe there should be an off-season trade deadline. That’s probably a bad idea given the injuries that pop up during spring, but I’m sure there’s something that could be figured out. I don’t know. I’m just selfishly trying to figure out a way to ramp up some action during these quiet weeks. Though I suppose maybe we’ll be missing the quiet when we’re worn down by a long season.

Reviewing Some Non-Roster Invitees

In the past, I think I’ve made a whole article out of digging into the non-roster invitees to spring training, but I’m going to include it here instead this year because I think the big league roster is more set than many will think it should be coming off a 65-win season. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some very interesting names.

Matt Beaty, 1B/OF
Dairon Blanco, OF
Austin Cox, LHP
Tyler Cropley, C
Yefri Del Rosario, RHP
Clay Dungan, INF
Tyler Gentry, OF
Brewer Hicklen, OF
Brooks Kriske, RHP
Nick Loftin, INF/OF
Mike Mayers, RHP
Andres Nunez, RHP
Logan Porter, C
John Rave, OF
Jakson Reetz, C
Tyler Tolbert, INF/OF
Luca Tresh, C
Ryan Weiss, RHP
Nick Wittgren, RHP

Of that list, seven have big league time. Three to five (depending on your viewpoint of Rave and Porter) are legitimate prospects. And the rest are likely some combination of filler and hoping to find something. You’ll always see a lot of pitchers and a lot of catchers brought into big league camp because, quite frankly, they need innings. But this year is going to be a great opportunity for a lot of these guys because of the World Baseball Classic. I haven’t found a great breakdown of the participants by MLB roster, but we know quite a few Royals will be away from the team for some time during the tournament.

If I had to guess, the players with real shots to make the club are Beaty, Mayers, Nunez and Wittgren. It’s not that others can’t, but those are the four that I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised by, in fact, I’m kind of regretting not having Wittgren specifically on my initial roster projection the more I think about it. Nunez, though, is the one who intrigues me. He was excellent in 2021 in Northwest Arkansas and carried that over for most of the season in Omaha in 2022. He strikes guys out and he limits walks. That plays in any bullpen. He had a brutal stretch in late July and early August where he gave up 13 runs on 15 hits in four innings that killed his numbers, but he was actually excellent outside of that. I would much rather see him on the roster than someone like Brad Keller.

But as for the rest, I’m very interested to see Gentry get some time, along with Loftin and Tresh. And I also want to see if Porter can bludgeon his way to a role with the team. He doesn’t actually have elite power, but a .301/.442/.476 line between AA and AAA last year as a righty on a club with lots of young lefty bats could be a wise investment. The problem for him is that he’s a first baseman and a catcher, which is fine but there just isn’t a ton of room for that. I think Porter more has a chance to impress in March with eyes on finding time later in the year.

The ZiPS Projections Are Here!

You probably know this already, but I love projection season. I love the numbers and seeing the possible outcomes but I also love the hand-wringing about it because I just find it funny. The most recent projections came out earlier this week and they’re maybe my favorites - ZiPS! This year (I don’t think it was there last year), Dan Szymborski added 80th and 20th percentile outcomes, which I think are really helpful to see because generally projections are all middle of the road outcomes. I think they get so much flack because they’re always lower than guys you think they should be high on and higher than guys they should be low on because it hits the middle ground.

Not every player gets directly in the middle and that’s okay! For example, I think I tend to believe that Bobby Witt Jr. will be a lot closer to his .295/.342/.523 80th percentile projection than his .241/.289/.413 20th percentile look. Why? It’s because, as I’ve written, I believe in the person and the worker that he is to get better. But, on the flip side, I kind of feel like the .243/.319/.461 for MJ Melendez in his 50th percentile projection makes a lot of sense. It’s all a matter of personal opinion, but that’s where I am with it.

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I was pleasantly surprised with the general projections for Salvador Perez, Witt, Melendez and Gentry, who checks in at .251/.331/.404 for a 101 OPS+. I was kind of bummed to see a .151 ISO for Drew Waters because I think the power is more real than that. I also kind of think the Vinnie Pasquantino .275/.352/.474 is a baseline for a guy who has shown he can hit at the big league level. If that’s his end slash line, I won’t be upset, but I think there’s a fair amount more in there.

The pitching is, not surprisingly, ugly. ZiPS believes in Brady Singer, which is nice. It also maybe believes in my assertion that the bullpen could be pretty good in 2023. Scott Barlow, Dylan Coleman and Richard Lovelady all project quite well and a handful more are serviceable to work in the middle innings with one or more likely stepping up to be closer to their 80th percentile projections. I think all projections can get a little caught up in prospect hype at times, even for prospects who aren’t hyped. It’s already an uneven science to project these things, but add in that there aren’t big league stats and it can get weird. Still, I do love projections.

A Place for Mondesi?

This past week, the Red Sox found out they’d be without Trevor Story for awhile this season due to elbow surgery. I think I saw one quote that said they’re hoping to have him back in 2023. That doesn’t mean he won’t be back, but if I’m reading between the lines, it means he may not be. So as of this exact moment, it looks like they’re going to head into the season with Kiké Hernandez at shortstop. He’s played 618 innings out of 6018.2 in his career at the position, so he’s at least done it. But I’m not sure it’s a great spot for him. Ideally, the Red Sox would sign an actual shortstop to play there. And there are a few free agents remaining who could very well handle the position for them just fine. But if they made a trade, I’d be curious if they’d be interested in Adalberto Mondesi.

We obviously don’t need to rehash the Mondesi story, but why I think he’s an interesting fit for Boston is that I believe they see themselves as a team that could compete but also could be sold for parts at the deadline. Look at the moves they’ve made this winter. Other than the long-term deal for Masataka Yoshida and extending Rafael Devers, which they basically had zero choice on, eery move they’ve made has been for someone who could easily be flipped in July. And that’s why I think Mondesi is interesting for them.

You can’t rely on him and all the talk of his upside rings especially hollow to me given that he continues to not be especially good when he’s on the field, but the talent is undeniable. We see it in flashes. For a team like the Red Sox that has to know they aren’t as good as the Yankees, Rays or Blue Jays and maybe aren’t as good as the Orioles, shouldn’t they be taking a chance on a guy like Mondesi to figure it out and bring back something in a trade? I know you can argue the Royals are in the same boat and they should be doing the same thing, but their priority is to develop Witt at shortstop, which decreases Mondesi’s value. The Red Sox could play him at shortstop.

There was a tweet the other day with a trade idea for Mondesi from a Red Sox fan who didn’t realize that Mondesi only has one year of control left, so take that with a grain of salt, but I do think there’s a fit there. As I tweeted, if a team makes an offer for Mondesi that includes any kind of real value to the Royals, you take it before they can change their mind. This isn’t a knock on Mondesi at all. It’s just that they’re in no-man’s land with him. This is something I’ve written about more than a couple of times, but with one year left on a deal, he can’t possibly prove enough even if he lights the world on fire for three or four months to know if you should give him a long-term deal. Short of hitting .350/.400/.550 or something like that, I just don’t think anything would make him worthy of even a five-year deal given the history.

I’m not sure what you can expect back for him. I’d be in on someone at much lower levels like Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz or Noah Dean. As usual, the names don’t really matter but give me a high upside lottery ticket. Either way, it’s nice that there’s another possibility for a move if they choose to move Mondesi.