A plethora of under-the-radar transactions take place every offseason. One you might have missed happened last week when Stephen Fife signed with the Chicago Cubs. The 29-year-old right-hander, fully recovered from Tommy John surgery, was inked to a minor-league deal that includes a spring training invite to big-league camp.

If you’re not a Dodgers diehard, you probably aren’t aware that Fife was one of six Los Angeles pitchers to start 10-or-more games for the 2013 NL West champions. He finished that year 4-4 with a 3.86 ERA, but was unceremoniously left off the postseason roster. Come playoff time, he was told he wasn’t welcome in the dugout, although he could come to the games and watch from the stands.

Originally in the Red Sox organization, Fife came to LA as part of a three-team trade in July 2011. According to Fife, he turned a corner the following season with the help of Josh Bard. The newly-named Dodgers bullpen coach was one of the club’s catchers that season, and he told Fife that adjustments were in order. Read the rest of this entry »

What happens when a team hires a new general manager or president of baseball operations? In most cases, a lot more than meets the eye. Behind the scenes, a number of structural changes take place. A smattering of them are less subtle in nature, and thus deemed newsworthy. The majority of changes go virtually unnoticed, sometimes because they’re known only within the inner workings of the organization.

In hopes of better understanding the dynamic, I queried multiple front office executives, all of whom requested anonymity. This article is comprised of their feedback, and is presented in blocks of interwoven quotes. With continuity in mind, the executive being quoted will often change from one paragraph to the next.

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“One thing we’ve seen over the years is a decrease in the number of longtime GMs. Twenty or thirty years ago a GM came on board and could count on staying in place for several years. That model no longer exists. There’s more turnover now, so any new group has to hit the ground running. Most groups try to shorten the learning curve by hiring people they know and trust to implement their philosophy. They try to put people in place to make a positive impact as quickly as possible.

“When J.P. Ricciardi became the GM in Toronto, there was a massive overhaul of the scouting staff. This past year saw the Dodgers make drastic changes in both international scouting and player development. Why were those changes made? I can’t speak for either group directly, but from a management perspective you need people you can trust to implement and execute your philosophy, whatever it might be. Read the rest of this entry »

The Boston Red Sox didn’t trade Henry Owens during the Winter Meetings. They still might trade him, depending on what kind of offers they receive for the 23-year-old lefty. While there’s no such thing as too much pitching, Boston does have depth in that department, and Dave Dombrowski likes power arms. Owens isn’t necessarily velocity deficient, but he’s more finesse than flamethrower.

Once viewed as untouchable, Owens is no longer looked at as sure-thing stud. He failed to dominate in Triple-A, and his 11 big league starts were a mixed bag. The club’s former top pitching prospect split eight decisions and finished with a 4.57 ERA and a 4.28 FIP.

As expected, Owens showed off an excellent changeup, which he threw 24.7% of the time after being called up in early August. How well he commanded his fastball largely dictated whether he was rock-and-rolling or getting rocked by opposing batters. The fastball averaged 89.1 mph, a tick or two less than in past years.

Owens talked about his first two months of MLB action in the closing days of September.

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Owens on pitch sequencing: “It’s definitely an evolving process for me. When I came up and pitched against the Yankees and Detroit – the teams I faced early on – I was predominantly fastball. I was trying to establish my stuff and see how it played up here. After a few outings, I started mixing it up more. Not my repertoire, per se, but the sequencing changed. Of course, it can change in any game, and depend somewhat on the lineup.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Minnesota Twins exceeded expectations in 2015, winning 83 games and remaining in contention for a Wild Card berth until the final weekend of the season. Many see it as an anomaly and are wont to predict regression. Others are more bullish, despite the team’s question marks and lack of star power.

Terry Ryan raised an eyebrow when I inquired as to the quality of his club heading into the coming campaign.

“It’s not only knowing where you are, but who you are,” Ryan told me. “And I think I know who we are. I also know where we came from.”

The longtime GM made a salient point. Four games over .500 is meaningful progress when you’re a small-market team coming off of four consecutive 90-plus loss seasons. Not that he’s satisfied. Prior to their 2011-2014 doldrums, the Twins captured six AL Central titles in a 10-year stretch. To Ryan, what’s anomalous is losing.

“We can be happy with what we did last year, but we shouldn’t be overjoyed, by any stretch,” said Ryan. “We have a long way to go. I would hope that last year was just us moving in the right direction.” Read the rest of this entry »

Thirteen months ago, Houston scouting director Mike Elias described Derek Fisher as “A big kid who can run and has a good swing with some power.” Last night, the Astros sent the 37th-overall pick of the 2014 draft to the Philadelphia Phillies as part of the deal for closer Ken Giles.

Fisher — a 22-year-old left-handed-hitting outfielder out of the University of Virginia — possesses power and speed. Splitting this season between low-A Quad Cities and high-A Lancaster, he went deep 22 times and swiped 31 bags in 38 attempts. His slash line was a solid .275/.364/.483. Punch outs were an issue, as he fanned 132 times.

Fisher, who finished his first full professional season with the Glendale Desert Dogs, talked about his toolsy-yet-unpolished game near the conclusion of the Arizona Fall League season. Read the rest of this entry »

Barry Bonds being hired as the new hitting coach in Miami evokes memories of Ted Williams managing the Washington Senators (who became the Texas Rangers by the end of his tenure). The self-proclaimed “Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived” wasn’t nearly as accomplished in the dugout as he was in the batter’s box. In four seasons (1969-1972) Williams’ teams went a cumulative 273-364.

The comparison is apples-to-oranges — hitting coach and manager are two different animals — but parallels exist. The Senators were a woebegone franchise, and in many respects, the Marlins are the modern day Senators.

And then there are the protagonists.

Along with Babe Ruth, Bonds and Williams are the most prolific hitters in baseball history. They have also been famously irascible, particularly with the media. Bonds will presumably shelve his surliness — it won’t fly in his new role, not in today’s game — but a bigger obstacle looms.

As a manager, Williams had trouble reconciling himself to the fact that his hitters were so imperfect. Why did they all too often struggle to understand facets of the craft that came naturally to him? Read the rest of this entry »

Jeff Bridich has been entrusted to build a championship team in baseballs’s most extreme park-factor environment. The 38-year-old Harvard graduate is the general manager of the Colorado Rockies, who play their home games in spacious, hitter-friendly-to-the-nines Coors Field.

Part of the Rockies front office since 2004, Bridich was the club’s director of player development prior to assuming his current role in October 2014.

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Bridich on what has changed since he became GM: “There are certainly changes in the composition of the roster. Most noticeably, we have a different person playing shortstop. There’s been a focus, the past 13 months or so, on adding powerful, high-impact, high-upside arms. Ideally those are guys with some sort of readiness to compete at the major league level.

“You look at guys like Jairo Diaz, and the guys we got from Toronto (Miguel Castro, Jeff Hoffman, Jesus Tinoco), in particular. Also, the guys we added to the roster, Antonio Senzatela and Carlos Estevez, to protect them from the Rule 5. There’s been a focus on that.” Read the rest of this entry »

Tommy Hottovy’s position within the Chicago Cubs organization isn’t high profile. It is, however, important to the team’s success. The 34-year-old former pitcher is the club’s Coordinator of Advance Scouting, with a focus on run prevention.

A graduate of Wichita State University, Hottovy played 10 professional seasons after being selected in the fourth round of the 2004 draft by Boston. His big league playing career consisted of 17 relief appearances for the Red Sox and the Kansas City Royals in 2011-2102. Hottovy was hired into his current position last December.

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Hottovy on his current position: “I was in spring training with the Cubs in 2014, playing, and blew out my shoulder. I had a feeling I was done, but I spent the summer rehabbing, anyway. Along the way, I took the online Sabermetrics 101 course from Boston University. I was a finance major with an economics minor at Wichita State, so I have a numbers background. I wanted to refresh my statistics knowledge, and the sabermetrics course, which is obviously about baseball, helped with that.

“I started talking to teams. I told Theo (Epstein) and (Director of Video and Advance Scouting) Kyle Evans what I was interested in, and once we signed Joe Maddon, we discussed how the whole dynamic may work. They were in and we kind of ran with it. Nate Halm, who’s been here for a few years, took on the hitting side of our process. I think we’ve formed a really good rapport with the coaching staff and players.

Read the rest of this entry »

Four players propelled baseballs over the left field roof at old Tiger Stadium. Frank Howard, Harmon Killebrew and Mark McGwire did so in visiting uniforms. Cecil Fielder was the lone Detroit Tiger to achieve the feat.

Mammoth power was required to reach that rarefied air. The left field fence was 340 feet from home plate, and the roof above the second deck was 94 feet high. Those dimensions were in effect from 1938-1999, a time period that encompassed nearly 10,000 games.

Fielder donned the Olde English D from 1990-1996, and he loved home cooking. The jumbo-sized slugger averaged 35 dingers in his time as a Tiger, and he was especially productive at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull. In 514 career games at Tiger Stadium, he had a .514 slugging percentage (how’s that for symmetry?).

“It was my place,” Fielder told me recently. “Great backdrop, great fan base. That ballpark was tailor made for me.”

Tiger Stadium was a relatively cozy 325 feet to right field, but it was no bandbox for right-handed hitters. Along with being 340 to left, it was a hefty 440 to straightaway center. That didn’t matter to Fielder, who could clear fences at Yellowstone, and in any direction. Read the rest of this entry »

The Milwaukee Brewers have had nine winning seasons during David Stearns’ lifetime. Over that span, they’ve won 90 or more games just four times. Their last World Series appearance was in 1982, three years before the 30-year-old Harvard graduate was born. He has his work cut out for him.

Stearns stepped into one of baseball’s most challenging jobs when he took over as Milwaukee’s general manager at season’s end. The Brewers play in MLB’s smallest market, and they compete in its toughest division. On the heels of a competitive 2014 campaign, they went into this past season with high hopes, only to limp to the finish line with a record of 68-94.

A native of New York, Stearns spent the past the three seasons in Houston, where he was the Astros’ assistant general manager.

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Stearns on his influences: “I think I bring a perspective from all of the different teams I’ve worked for. I’ve had the benefit of working for a number of different leaders, a number of different general managers. That started with Dave Littlefield when I was an intern in Pittsburgh and then Omar Minaya with the Mets. I spent time in the commissioner’s office working for Dan Halem and a number of very smart people. From there I went to Cleveland and worked for Mark Shapiro, Chris Antonetti and Mike Chernoff. And lastly, in Houston I worked for Jeff Luhnow.

Read the rest of this entry »