It’s not been officially confirmed as yet, but all signs point to this being a done deal, with the rumours saying that the contract is worth $14m-15m. That’s about what you’d expect to pay for an average starter on the free agent market so, as with the Joakim Soria contract, it feels like the A’s have set realistic targets and been able to get some good business done.
Fiers is no superstar and even the Coliseum can’t take away too much from his homer-prone nature. He gave up 32 longballs in 2018, the same as Bartolo Colon and Jakob Junis, with only James Shields (34) and Dylan Bundy (41!) giving up more in the Majors. However, even with the homers he was able to provide solid innings for the Tigers and A’s last year, as he had for the Brewers and Astros previously.
I mentioned yesterday that the impact of the A’s rotation in 2018 wasn’t one of a great strength, but doing enough to hold up its end whilst the bullpen, batting line-up and fielding did the rest. That’s likely to to be the plan for 2019 too and Fiers fits well into that.
My statement yesterday that the team needed 2 or 3 starting pitchers can come down to 1 or 2. I neglected to mention top prospect Jesus Lazardo solely because this time last year our hopes were high for A.J. Puk only for his elbow to go ping. Health depending, the Opening Day rotation group will be joined at some point by Lazardo and he could make a real impact in the second half of the season.
Another addition to a comment I made yesterday concerns our catcher options. Jon Heyman’s latest MLB notes column contained the following:
The A’s offered catcher Jonathan Lucroy a one-year deal for about $4M, but Lucroy has been hoping not to take a pay cut from the $6.5M he made last year. He did a nice job working with the A’s young pitchers last year, which is why they want him back
I had questioned whether the signing of Chris Hermann meant that the A’s were set at catcher. Whilst we may have moved on, there were so many positive comments by the A’s Front Office, Bob Melvin and Lucroy about the relationship as the season came to a close that it’s possible the lines of communication have been kept open. If Lucroy doesn’t receive a more lucrative contract offer by early February then a compromise might be reached and he may be back. One to keep an eye on, at least.
2018 was a wonderful year for fans of the Oakland A’s and we were given an early Christmas present on Friday to sign the year off on a good note. The team confirmed the rumoured signing of relief pitcher Joakim Soria and announced the more surprising capture of Jurickson Profar in a three-team trade involving the Texas Rangers and Tampa Bay Rays.
This season’s success was such a jump forward from the past three campaigns that there will be understandable questions as to whether it was a one-off. Only time will tell, but filling some of the holes that have appeared on the roster is a good way to start to address them.
The bullpen was a significant part of the A’s good season so it made sense to ensure that remains a strength. Although some seem surprised that the A’s picked up their $4.25m 2019 option on Fernando Rodney, he did well for us and keeping him in the fold – rather than creating another hole to fill – made sense.
Soria can be seen as the replacement for mid-season recruit Jeurys Familia, now back with the Mets on a three-year, $30m free agent contract. He’s a proven good relief pitcher and the two-year, $15m contract is what you’d expect to pay for such a player on this free agent market, so no complaints with that deal.
The addition of Profar will naturally be seen alongside the loss of Jed Lowrie. Jed was tremendous for us this season, and good under-the-radar in 2017 too, and unfortunately his timing ahead of hitting the free agency market made it likely he would price his way out of a return. I can’t wish anything but the best for him though and Profar is an intriguing replacement. His story as a former number one prospect bedevilled by injuries is well known and 2018 was the year in which he finally got to play regularly (146 games) and showed some of the talent that made him so highly regarded.
A’s general manager David Forst is quoted in the MLB.com article stating: “We feel like this is a guy who’s just getting to what he’s capable of … we feel like he’s really ready to break out as one of the stars of the American League”.
Sounds good to me.
What about other holes? Jonathan Lucroy is another player who did well enough in 2018 to raise his free agency contract expectations beyond the A’s comfort zone. Chris Herrmann has been signed as a free agent, although it’s not clear if the intention is for him to be the main catcher alongside Josh Phegley or if another player may join too. That may well depend on the A’s plans for prospect Sean Murphy who has earned plenty of positive reviews. My guess at the moment is that Murphy may be called-up before the All-Star break, if not even making the Opening Day roster, and the A’s may go with what they’ve got until then.
However, we all know where the gaping holes are on the roster.
The primary reason for pre-2018 scepticism was the starting rotation, a rag-bag bunch of maybes and probably-won’ts behind Sean Manaea. The additions of veteran pitchers Trevor Cahill and Brett Anderson, followed by Edwin Jackson and Mike Fiers during the season, made a difference not in making the rotation a strength compared to American League rivals, but in preventing it from being a damaging weakness.
None of those veterans are around now, Cahill signing a one-year deal with the Angels this week and the others still out on the market, and Manaea is unlikely to pitch in 2019 whilst recovering from shoulder surgery.
Much as I hope for the best for all players in the A’s system, all that looking at the A’s current starting pitching options (RosterResource.com has the top five currently as Daniel Mengden, Frankie Montas, Chris Bassitt, Aaron Brooks and Paul Blackburn) tells you is that the A’s will be adding at least two, if not three pitchers to the group over the next few months. That’s not going to be easy though with the A’s ever-present budget restrictions meaning the Front Office is going to need to get creative.
It’s nothing new for David Forst, Billy Beane and company so we’ll see what tricks they can pull ahead of the A’s early MLB regular start in Tokyo, Japan in March.
The BBF’s Annual General Meeting takes place in London this Saturday (15 December).
The AGM pack is available on the BBF website, revealing that alongside the usual AGM points of order there will be discussions on the format of competitions (such as the national championships) and 2019 operations more generally, including preparations for the 2019 MLB London Series.
As stated on Monday, the London Series offers a unique opportunity for British clubs to benefit from some rare baseball publicity in the mainstream media, so pooling ideas and resources on how to capitalise on this is a good idea.
The rules proposal from Guildford Baseball Club within the AGM pack isn’t directly tied to this, but it could be.
It’s the perennial question for British baseball: what’s the best playing format to attract and retain newcomers in a landscape with a relatively small number of clubs (affecting how easily you can play regularly without significant travel commitments) and where the core skills learnt as kids Stateside can’t be taken for granted from young – and not so young – adults?
Guildford’s proposal is based on their belief that the current format (essentially standard rules baseball) isn’t proving to be conducive to growing the game and that whilst it would be preferable to stay as true to the MLB version of the game as possible, compromises to this are worth making if it makes for a more enjoyable experience for those new to the sport.
The proposal is not so much a definitive new structure and rule book but a group of well-considered ideas to prompt debate. Plenty of clubs across Britain put great effort into attracting new players with taster sessions and they are precisely the sort of thing that might get a small boost from the London Series. However, having opportunities for those newcomers to build on their initial interest is vital.
That makes it a good time to think carefully about the way in which Single-A baseball works in Britain, so it will be interesting to see how the conversation develops following Guildford’s proposal.
As we head towards the Christmas period and the end of the year, it’s always a time to reflect on what’s happened over the past twelve months and what the new year may bring. Various bits of news last week made it a good time to do just that for baseball in Britain.
MLB London Series
Tickets went on sale last week, and quickly sold out, for the MLB London Series taking place at the London Stadium on 29-30 June 2019. Relatively high prices, frustrating online sales process and exploitation by re-sellers and touts were all sadly to be expected and left plenty of dedicated baseball fans ticket-less and disappointed.
The unfortunate truth is that the prices are precisely why MLB is coming to London ahead of other European cities. Although MLB will say the right things about growing the game, in truth if the primary focus was on the wider benefits of developing baseball through International Series events then their first foray into Europe may have been staged in Hoofddorp, Netherlands, a temporary venue in Rome, Italy, or in Regensburg, Germany instead.
They are coming to London, using a multi-purpose stadium with all the compromises that brings for playing field dimensions and viewing points, because that’s where the money is and where they’ll get the most publicity. That’s the compromise we have to accept for MLB deciding to bring games here. It’s a slightly cynical point of view, and no comfort to those who hoped to attend and found themselves priced-out, but is probably the reality.
That isn’t to take away from the potential benefits there will be for British baseball, just that this isn’t MLB’s goal and shouldn’t be expected to be. If the 2019 London Series, and the proposed follow-up in 2020, is to help grow the game on these shores then it’s up to us in the British baseball community to make that happen. How can we use the publicity of the Yankees and Red Sox coming to London to make more people aware of the baseball that’s already here?
It will need their support, of course, and primarily in respect of what they can achieve with media coverage. We’ve seen positive reports of BBC’s interest in broadcasting the two London games and that BT Sport are working to extend their TV deal. What we ideally need is some wider free-to-air coverage of MLB games for the 2019 season more generally, be that on TV or radio, and that’s a difficult problem to solve as we all know. We’ve not had any such coverage since the end of the BBC 5 Live Sports Extra show several years ago. The London Series at least gives broadcasters a reason to think about adding MLB rights to capitalise on some new-found wider interest.
Great Britain Baseball misses out on funding
The standing of baseball on these shores was shown by the announcement on Thursday that the Great Britain set-up was unsuccessful in their bid to receive money from the UK Sport Aspiration Fund.
The GB Women’s Fastpitch Team programme did receive an award of £62,500 at least, but the hope that baseball’s Olympic return for the 2020 Tokyo Games might at last end the long-running situation of our national programme receiving no such direct funding were dashed.
In the BSUK press release, GB Head Coach Liam Carroll was typically pragmatic about the development (“This is, however, a story with which we’re familiar”). Focus will shift to the London Series and any publicity and fund raising the GB set-up can achieve alongside MLB’s event. Even the ability to sell some GB merchandise around the stadium would be a benefit, so we’ll see how co-operative the MLB Office will be.
Next year will be an important one for the the senior national team as they are heading to Germany in September for the 2019 European Championships. GB finished ninth in the 2016 event, so we all know making the top five to qualify for the Africa/European Olympic qualifier will be a big challenge.
That was highlighted by the new Super 6 tournament staged for the first time by the Confederation of European Baseball this past September. Featuring the widely-recognised current leading nations – tournament winners the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Spain, Belgium and the Czech Republic – it produced some very well-played baseball from what I saw via the online broadcasts. Co-operation between different national federations in Europe has long been a delicate process, yet staging events like the Super 6 is surely in the interests of all, pooling the best European teams for the highest standard of competition to further player development and to provide a great showcase for the sport.
The Great Britain baseball programme is working to get into that top group in future and the Under 23’s bronze-medal finish in the 2018 European Championship Qualifier shows what could be possible.
British teams in Europe
Easily overlooked alongside the London Series ticket launch was the BBF announcement on Monday that the 2018 National Baseball Championship finalists, the London Mets and Herts Falcons, had both accepted the CEB invitation to participate in the 2019 Federations Cup qualifiers. These are currently scheduled to take place in Moscow, Russia, in June just a couple of weeks before the MLB London Series.
It will be a debut European tour for the Herts Baseball Club, whilst the London Mets have been earning frequent flyer points representing British baseball in recent years. The Mets put up a good showing in Bulgaria in June, finishing third in their group with a 2-2 record, whilst the Southampton Mustangs went 1-3 in their group in Poland.
The State of the British Leagues?
Ahead of the publicity that baseball will receive in Britain in 2019, how would we sum up the state of the British leagues?
As an onlooker rather than a direct participant, things seem as frustratingly disjointed as they have been for a number of years. Nothing summed that up better (not really the word to use) than the situation at the start of the season when a dispute between the British Baseball Federation (BBF) and Baseball Softball UK resulted in the BBF launching a new website at www.britishbaseballfederation.com.
Unsurprisingly that became a work in progress and core details such as fixtures, results and league tables were much harder to come by. We can see that the Long Eaton Storm (Single-A), East London Latin Boys (Double-A), Richmond Knights (Triple-A) and London Mets (NBL) all won their respective levels, but decent details about the seasons in each league are not so easy to find.
The biggest shame from a personal point of view is that the London Mets achieved a historic feat of capturing a record fifth top-tier title (the first team to do so in the modern era) during what is currently going to go down in the annals of British baseball history as a lost season. 2018 marked the first time in many years that even basic statistical details of the top-tier in British baseball have not been available to the national hub for baseball records at Project COBB (something that I of course declare a strong vested interest in).
Whilst developments such as the live streaming of national championship games on YouTube are greatly welcome, it’s incredibly disappointing that fixtures, results, league tables and stats are absent from the national federation’s website.
The BBF is still joined by several independent leagues in the British Baseball League, the South West Baseball League and Baseball Scotland that, from the outside at least, all seem to be fairing well. Having independent leagues is not necessarily a bad thing in an amateur sport relying on volunteers – if the independence gives an area better scope to tailor competitions that help the clubs grow and get more people playing regularly then so be it – but ideally in the context of constructive working relations between all where possible.
Today @BritishBaseball president and Kevin M from the BBL @huuscorpions meeting up to discuss baseball in the UK. Talks between BBF and @Scots_Baseball went well. Next we look forward to speaking to @swbleague Let's all get along and just play BASEBALL!
— British Baseball Federation (@BritishBaseball) November 1, 2018
What’s clear is that 2019 is going to provide opportunities for British baseball to promote our sport and encourage more people to join the community, beyond taking a cursory interest in a couple of MLB games. Hopefully it will prove to be a positive year for us all that have an interest in British baseball.
