In what would initially seem a slightly odd and sudden move, both Miguel Montero and GM Kevin Towers suddenly announced Wednesday that talks of an extension have been put on hold.

Nick Piecoro indicated that the two sides were unable to find common ground (twitter), although Miguel Montero did tell Jack Magruder that he considered the Diamondbacks to be his priority following this upcoming season.

Regardless, it looks like Miguel Montero will be joining a relatively stacked group of free-agent catchers (Napoli, Martin and Ianetta) in 2013 (kudos to MLBtraderumors for keeping tabs on these things).

Previous reports have indicated that the length of the contract was not the obstacle, so process of deduction leads us to conclude that it was – as usual – coming down to the dollar amount.

Over the weekend, we looked at why the two sides might not have been able to reach an agreement. For more speculation about each side’s possible thoughts on an extension, feel free to re-visit this post and read up on Montero’s history of inconsistent playing time, his valuable offensive contributions in 2011, and how he could price himself outside of the Diamondbacks’ budget by testing the free agent market – simply by staying healthy.

And, given the recent Yadier Molina extension (5 years @ $75 million), the timing of the sudden “breakdown” in contract talks seems little suspect. Again, Nick Piecoro indicated that both sides are insisting that they weren’t affected by that recent news, but it seems highly coincidental that two groups of people who were already (one would assume) not seeing eye-to-eye on value would all of a sudden just spontaneously decide to end negotiations following the signing of the third largest contract for a catcher – ever.

Perhaps the announcement isn’t so much odd as it is reflective of a gap between the sides that was either:

1. Larger than previously appreciated. Or,

2. Suddenly larger following the events of earlier this week.

Although Yadier Molina has shown far more durability over his career, their offensive production had been comparable in the last few seasons – with Montero even collecting a slight advantage over Molina in some categories.

So, while a good season in a contract year will likely be very helpful to the Diamondbacks’ goal of repeating  as division champions, they’re probably going to have to start saving their pennies, because the ink isn’t even dry on Molina’s new contract and it seems like Miguel Montero’s asking price is going up.

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Yesterday, the team announced the starting pitchers for the first two Split Squad games. According to Steve Gilbert, the split squad game against the Rockies will have Drew Pomeranz and Josh Outman pitching for the Rockies, facing Tyler Skaggs and Trevor Bauer.

He also announced that Josh Collmenter will be starting versus the Giants.

Given all of the attention being paid to the pair of top prospects so far in this off-season and pre-season, I have a feeling that there might be a whole lot more interest in the game happening at Salt River Fields on March 3.

Also of note yesterday, was Daniel Hudson having to “clarify” a number of comments that he made regarding retaliation for opposing pitchers who hit his teammates. Hudson explained himself in this article at mlb.com and there was a bit of reaction from the D-backs’ front office here.

I expect to cover this issue more in-depth in the next couple of days, but I’ll leave you with this:

Last season, the Diamondbacks had 5421 offial at-bats and they were hit by a pitch 61 times. There were 6 teams with a greater total number of hit batsmen, but none with fewer plate appearances.

Last season, the Diamondbacks pitching staff threw 1443 innings and hit 53 batters. There were 21 teams that pitched more innings than Diamondbacks pitchers. Only 12 of those hit fewer batsmen.

I probably won’t be shocked if those numbers change a little bit this year.

It’s Monday! That means its time for the news and notes from around the MiLB portions of the Diamondbacks organization.

The most important “news” of the week came out of big league spring training camp, where rookie hazing turned into medieval times! Check out the “Snakes on the Grass” recap of the pitching rookies heading to the renaissance festival.

• Reno Aces (AAA)
• The Aces helpfully collected some recent links at their official blog.
• There will be more televised Aces games this season.
• The team announced that a season pass is only $72 for 72 home games if you’re a full-time student. See this tweet for more info.
•  Mobile BayBears (AA)
• The team annouced the hiring of Justin Shackil as the team’s new Director of Broadcasting/Media Relations for the 2012 season.
• They also announced a “Golden Glovers” program. If you’re over the age of 60 and want to act as a ballboy (or girl), this could be the program for you.
• Visalia Rawhide (A Adv.)
• The team announced that, by liking them on Facebook, you could win prizes in a series of competitions.
• South Bend Silver Hawks (A)
• It’s next-to-impossible to top last week’s Mark Haley Miracle. So, we’ll mention it again. And, expect him at spring training!
• The Silver Hawks continued their local promotion by airing a few commercials during the Oscars. You can check them out at their youtube page.
• Renovations are getting underway at the park.
• Want to work at the park on game day? They’re looking for help
• Yakima Bears (SS)
• We’ll keep an eye out for next week!
• Missoula Osprey (R)
• We’ll keep an eye out for next week!

Well, that wraps up another edition of Minors Monday. See y’all next week.

Wrapping up the week that was, while we get ready for the week to come.

From “Snakes on the Grass”:

• Minors Monday focused mostly on an in-depth profile of top prospect Trevor Bauer.
• There was some mild speculation that the Dbacks would be looking for depth at catcher.
• We took a look at why the Diamondbacks and Miguel Montero might be having a bit of difficulty reaching an agreement on an extension.
• MLB announced that an early spring training game against the Cleveland Indians will have the players wearing microphones.
• We took a look at why the Nats would have to be creative to pry Gerardo Parra from the Diamondacks
• Thanks to Charles Brewer, the hazing trip that that the Diamondbacks’ rookie pitchers took to the Renaissance Festival was posted to twitter for us all to enjoy!

Best of the rest of the web:

• AZCentral posted a great interview/profile of John McDonald. It’s a great look into the camaraderie inside the Diamondbacks’ clubhouse. Well worth a read.
• For a complete round-up of spring training news, head over to the blog of MLB.com’s beat reporter Steve Gilbert‘s blog (Inside the Dbacks)
• Trevor Bauer showed up to training camp. He thought he was early. Turns out, he was wrong. This story and a few other nuggets from spring training here at AZCentral.
• Some people have high expectations of Bryan Shaw
• John Sickels at minorleagueball.com took a look back at the history of Miguel Montero‘s career.
• MLB.com reported that the Washington Nationals were interested in Gerardo Parra. The Diamondbacks quickly squashed that rumor – for the moment.
• Speaking of Gerardo Parra, he definitely showed some class in addressing his most-likely-4th-outfielder role in 2012.
• Nick Piecoro revealed that Takashi Saito has a different training program than the other Diamondbacks’ pitchers. And, perhaps more surprisingly, wasn’t required to take a physical prior to signing- because the front office thought he would fail it.

photo credit: @CharlesBrewerAZ

As you are probably aware, the practice of “rookie hazing” pops up at two major times in every baseball season. First, in spring training and then once again when the September call-ups happen. It usually involves sparkles, ruffles, pink, cartoon characters, spandex or some combination of these things.

Also, someone usually has a camera. A quick google images search of “baseball rookie hazing” will unearth countless gems that will both amuse and horrify you (seriously, go try it sometime. You’ll be scarred for life.).

And thanks to the miracle of twitter, the first round of rookie hazing in the Diamondbacks’ camp was posted on twitter for all of us to screencap see.

So, may I present “Diamondbacks’ Rookies Go To The Fare Fair Faire(?) Festival“

» Continue reading “Let’s Go To The Fair! Or: Diamondbacks’ Rookie Hazing”

So, this morning, rumblings that the Washington Nationals were interested in Gerardo Parra started to make their way around the web.

I shrugged them off and tried to ignore them, but as the afternoon has worn on, the rumors are continuing to permeate.

We have talked a lot about Gerardo Parra during this off-season: his defense, his offense, and his general affordability and relatively equal production in comparison to free-agent outfielder Jason Kubel. We’ve even covered it in pictorial form. This is partially because the stability of the Diamondbacks’ roster didn’t give us too many moves to talk about over the course of the off-season and partially because, of the moves that were made, the one that pushed their gold glove RF to the bench was the most surprising.

But, here we are today. Talking about Gerardo Parra. Again.

So, there seems to be a popular opinon that the Washington Nationals are in need of someone who can play center field. There’s a recap here (thanks to Win For Teddy for keeping me up to date with Nats news that I would otherwise miss), which explains the fluid situation of the Nats’ outfield – particularly center field – going into the start of spring training. The Nats need someone to play CF and Gerardo Parra can do that, even if he’s played far more often in the corners.

Well, its hard to imagine that the Diamondbare going out of their way to shop their fourth outfielder. They traded away one of their top outfield prospects (Collin Cowgill) in the Trevor Cahill trade, so it would create a little bit of uncertainty in terms of the fourth outfielder situation. Not that these problems are insurmountable, but in order to speculate, we have to operate under some basic assumptions.

» Continue reading “Parra Trade Rumors. Or: Sedona Red to Washington Red?”

So, MLB Network announced the broadcast schedule for its spring training games earlier this week.

The schedule for the Diamondbacks is as follows (italics = tape-delayed telecasts, obviously):

• March 7 - 1 p.m.: (L) Cleveland Indians at Arizona D-backs
• March 12 - 2 p.m.: Arizona D-backs at Cleveland Indians
• March 14 - 8 a.m.: Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim at Arizona D-backs
• March 23 - 12 a.m.: Arizona D-backs* at Chicago White Sox 
• March 27 - 9 p.m.: Colorado Rockies* at Arizona D-backs 
• March 30 - 2 p.m.: Arizona D-backs at Los Angeles Angels
• April 1 - 12 a.m.: Arizona D-backs at Los Angeles Dodgers
• April 5 - 2 a.m.: Milwaukee Brewers at Arizona D-backs

Yes, every game has at least one element of excitement – from playing the AL-version of Albert Pujols when the Dbacks play the LAA, to playing against hometown boy Paul Konerko and his Chicago White Sox and, not to mention, meeting the not Braun-less but Prince Fielder-less Milwaukee squad that booted the Dbacks from the playoffs last year.

However, the game on March 7 is, oddly, perhaps the game that fans should find the most noteworthy. Yes. A game against the Cleveland Indians. Who the Dbacks will not even be playing in interleague play this year.

From azcentral.com:

In cooperation with the Major League Baseball Players Association, up to as many  as six players on each team will wear live microphones during the game. Members  of the coaching staffs also will wear live microphones throughout the game and  live microphones will be positioned at each base, down the first- and third-base  lines and along the outfield wall, producing in-game audio content on a scale  that has not previously been done.

They are airing the game “live”. That is, it will be almost live, but on a slight delay in order to – I assume - rein in (ie: bleep out) some of the more “colorful” happenings and make the whole thing family-friendly.

And, while I actually do have a burning desire to hear what sorts of idle chit-chat happens at first base when the runner is waiting there, waiting for the next person in the line-up to start their at-bat, I’m also highly pessimistic that this whole thing is probably going to end in a tragic pile of awkwardness. Or, at least go down in a firey blaze of profanity. Or, I guess, it’s possible that it could be just as entertaning as I want it to be.

But, regardless, sign me up.

Today’s the day of the first full-squad workout in Arizona and we’re that much closer to real live baseball games.

One of the stories that has come out of Salt River Fields in the last couple of days is that catcher Miguel Montero and the team are still a ways apart on negotiating an extension.

image from flikr user afagen (flikr.com/photos/afagen/3803285289/)

What We Know: There’s History in Arizona

Miguel Montero was signed by the Arizona Diamondbacks as a high school player out Venezuela in 2001 (as an amateur free agent). He spent 5 years in the minor league system, before making his debut with the organization in 2006 as a September call-up. He’s played his entire career in the Diamondbacks uniform until this point, and has said that he would like to stay in Arizona.

It is also been revealed that both Montero and the club aren’t having any trouble agreeing to the length of the contract, but its the question of money where the two sides diverge. This was evident when it took until moments before his arbitration hearing for 2012 for the two sides to agree on a salary. Even in his arbitration figures, it was easy to see that the 2 sides have very differing ideas of Montero’s “value”. Montero filed at $6.8 million and the team at $5.4 million.

Although this is most often the case in contract negotionations, I think the reasons why this might be are particularly easy to see when it comes to Miguel Montero.

What We Know: Miguel Montero is Good. REALLY GOOD.

We know that Miguel Montero is very good at baseball. He was an all-star in 2011 and even earned himself some votes in the MVP ballotting. He was first in the NL in caught-stealing percentage (40%) – a number which he has DOUBLED since 2008 – and second in the NL at the number of runners he threw out. He also made the leaderboard in the number of putouts on the season (9th) for the first time. Defensive metrics for catchers are generally quite crap, but I think its safe to say that, at the very least, his defense at catcher has improved over time. He’s still high up there on the number of passed balls and errors, but those are stats that are affected by both the number of opportunities you have and are also relatively subjective. So, again, defensive metrics are still crap.

In terms of Miguel’s offensive production, his RBISs, batting average, slugging percentage, isolated power and on base percentage was second to only Justin Upton on the team. In comparison to other catchers in baseball in 2011, his RBIs were 2nd among catchers (second to only Victor Martinez), his 18 HRs were tied for 8th with Russel Martin, 2nd in doubles (again, behind Victor Martinez – and Miguel was 9th overall in the NL in the number of doubles he hit), he was 4th in batting average (again, first place went to V-Mart), 3rd in OBP, slugging and OPS (behind Victor Martinez and Alex Avila).

So, it is pretty clear that he delivers offensively for his team, but also that his numbers stand up against the best in baseball. And, considering that V-Mart spent more than 100 games at DH this year (and Alex Avila puled DH-duty 4 times), that’s some impressive company to find himself in. He can hit.

» Continue reading “Contract Talk. Or: Everyone Wants Montero To Stay (Including Miguel Montero)”

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There’s been a void here at “Snakes on the Grass” for the last few days, for which I offer my apologies.

Let’s remedy that right now, shall we?

If you’re looking for a daily recap of the spring training events so far, check out Steve Gilbert’s blog (Inside the Dbacks).

Today we’re going to talk about the slow, quiet, but steady rumblings that might be going on in the background of the Diamondbacks’ front office.

There’s been some murmuring around baseball that the Diamondbacks could use a little bit of depth at catcher (because heaven forbid something happen to Miguel Montero) and now, apparently, the team has been talking to Ivan Rodriguez. So, that’s interesting. We’ll have to wait and see how that plays out.

It also raises an interesting issue – again – of the 25 man roster. There’s been a lot of thought that, perhaps, the roster was already set, going into spring training. But, with the rumors of Ivan Rodriguez, the too-many-infielders-once-Stephen Drew-is-back, the discussion of possibly Drew not coming back for an extended period of time and needing a more permanent solution at shortstop and, not to mention, there’s a significant population of bloggers and fantasy baseball players out there who expect at least 1/3 of the current 25-man roster to regress from last year.

So if you haven’t taken the time to familiarize yourself with the 40-man roster and the non-roster pitchers and position players that were invited to spring training this year, now might be a good time. Because its spring training – and anything is possible.

It’s Monday! That means its time for the news and notes from around the MiLB portions of the Diamondbacks organization. Hopefully this will be the last slow news week for a while, now that things are kicking into gear.

Reno Aces (AAA)

• Aces players reported for ST yesterday, according to the official twitter account.
• The team started a Pinterest page

Mobile BayBears (AA)

• BayBear Trevor Bauer (@BauerOutage) was all over MiLB.com this week following an interview he gave where he talked about the wide variety of pitches that he possesses. He has NINE. And, from all accounts, it seems like it is both quantity AND quality. For more Trevor Bauer, here’s an interview he did earlier in this off-season.
• Starting February 20th, the BayBears are hosting a high school classic. Five days of baseball.

Visalia Rawhide (A Adv.)

• Other than also covering the Trevor Bauer article (since he played with the Rawhide as well this past season), the only other news from the Rawhide was a new edition of “This is Rawhide Baseball”.

South Bend Silver Hawks (A)

• The Silver Hawks announced that there are contests hidden in their TV commercials, so watch carefully to win a flat screen TV.
• And, in what was – by far – the biggest MiLB news this week, Silver Hawks manager Mark Haley gave a fantastic, revealing interview about his off-season health problems. Check it out. No really. We mean it. We’ll wait right here for you to come back when you’re done.

Yakima Bears (SS)

• There wasn’t any news from the Bears this week, but we’ll keep our eyes peeled for the next edition.

Missoula Osprey (R)

• There wasn’t any news from the Bears this week, but we’ll keep our eyes peeled for the next edition.