MLB Stars with the Most to Gain in Season's Final Weeks
Impossible as it seems, the baseball season is almost over.
It feels like spring training just ended, yet here we sit, with only two weeks left to go before all but 10 of MLB's 30 teams head home for the winter.
For some players, like the Chicago White Sox's Paul Konerko and New York Yankees' Derek Jeter, the end of the season means the end of their careers, with the next two weeks serving as their last chance to take in everything that comes along with being a professional ballplayer.
For others, the final weeks provide an opportunity. Veterans who find themselves on contending clubs have a chance to potentially make one more run at a World Series title that has managed to elude them throughout their career.
Up-and-coming youngsters have an opportunity to make a name for themselves and leave little doubt that they are ready to contribute to a team's success over the course of a full season.
Players set to hit the free-agent market once the playoffs come to an end have another few weeks to improve their profiles, with the hope that one final hot stretch will be enough to increase their earning power substantially.
Let's take a look at those players with the most on the line over the last few weeks of the regular season.
Billy Butler, DH/1B, Kansas City Royals
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Teams typically don't pay big bucks for a designated hitter who doesn't hit.
Billy Butler has mustered only a .266/.319/.374 slash line this season—a .251/.299/.326 slash line as Kansas City's DH—flipping what once seemed to be a foregone conclusion upside down.
Now, it's all but a certainty that the Royals are going to pay Butler a $1 million buyout of the $12.5 million team option Kansas City holds on the 28-year-old slugger for 2015—a team option that looked to be a relative bargain considering his past performance.
To his credit, Butler isn't letting his uncertain future distract him from the task at hand, as he explained to The Topeka Capital-Journal's Jeff Deters at the end of August:
"Everyone knows my contract expires at the end of the year. But I've always been a Royal, and that’s all I care to do. I’m sure that we’ll be having a lot of time to talk. That’ll take care of itself in the offseason. We've got bigger things to worry about now.
"
But the 28-year-old has all but disappeared down the stretch for the Royals, managing just one hit in 17 September at-bats and finding himself riding the pine, while Josh Willingham has seemingly bumped him as the team's full-time DH.
While his opportunities may be scarce, picking up some key hits and getting on base—as he's shown he's more than capable of doing in the past—would at least begin to repair some of the damage that his late-season swoon has done to his reputation.
Stephen Drew, 2B/SS, New York Yankees
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If Stephen Drew thought that the offers he received as a free agent last winter weren't to his liking, both he and his agent, Scott Boras, are in for a rude awakening once the season comes to an end.
For not only has Drew struggled to produce after sitting out the first two months of the regular season before ultimately re-signing with the Red Sox, but he's somehow managed to be even less productive in New York than he was in Boston:
| BOS (39) | .176 | .583 | 11 (4) | 11 | 57 |
| NYY (35) | .135 | .466 | 8 (2) | 10 | 25 |
Two weeks isn't nearly enough time for Drew to rebuild his shattered earning power, but some sign of life—any sign of life—would help to at least make him a viable option for a team looking for an upgrade at second base or shortstop.
For now, Drew heads into free agency as a shell of the player he once was, someone who isn't going to be anywhere near the top of any general manager's list of free agent targets.
Adam Dunn, DH, Oakland Athletics
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Only twice over his 14-year career has Adam Dunn been part of a team that finished the season with a winning record—in 2008 with Arizona and in 2012 with Chicago (AL)—and neither team won enough to advance to the postseason.
Now with Oakland, the 34-year-old slugger finds himself with perhaps his best—and last—chance to make the playoffs.
Dunn, who was leaning toward retirement before he was traded to the A's, has since backtracked a bit, as he explained to John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle: “Obviously, things have changed now. I owe it to myself to put that on the back burner for at least a couple months.”
But it's not only reaching the playoffs that Dunn has to gain—he could gain another year (or more) on his career if he plays well enough down the stretch, keeping alive a chance for him to hit the 38 home runs he needs to become the 27th member of the 500-home run club.
For that to happen, however, Dunn is going to need to convince a perennial contender that he can help it get over the hump in 2015—for he won't play for a non-contender in order to reach the milestone, he told Shea's Chronicle colleague Susan Slusser.
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Maikel Franco, 3B/1B, Philadelphia Phillies
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Under normal circumstances, Maikel Franco would be entrenched as Philadelphia's starting third baseman for the rest of the regular season.
But there's nothing normal about the way the Phillies operate, and the team's 22-year-old top prospect has found himself splitting time with Cody Asche at the hot corner while spending some time across the diamond at first base as well.
To his credit, Franco isn't letting anything get him down as he gets his first taste of major league action.
"I'm so happy to be here, and like I said, I'm continuing to do my work and trying to play the game the right way," Franco told NJ.com's Matt Lombardo. "For me, everyone knew that even while I was playing in the minor leagues, I wanted to play in the major leagues. That was my reputation and now that I'm here, I want to continue to go through my routine and keep working hard."
His numbers aren't great—6-for-31 (.194 BA) with a double and five RBI—but Franco has managed to make an impression on manager Ryne Sandberg:
"I was impressed because Monday night it looked like they had a shift on him and it looked like he tried to hit away from the defense. I was told that he has the ability to handle the bat, he's a situational guy with the ability to move the runner from first to second by hitting to the opposite field and he showed that in that approach, hitting away from the shift and getting himself a base hit.
"
Franco is a huge part of Philadelphia's future, and the best thing for both player and team is for him to get as much experience down the stretch as he possibly can, making him better prepared to take control of the hot corner on a full-time basis in 2015.
Perhaps that's just it—perhaps the Phillies don't want Franco to be in a position to win the job outright in spring training, preferring to go with the unremarkable Asche at the start of the season while Franco doesn't accrue service time back in Triple-A.
It's on Franco to make the most of the chances he gets this season to make that decision an impossible one for the team to make next year.
Chase Headley, 3B, New York Yankees
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Chase Headley hasn't been an overwhelming success since being traded to the New York Yankees shortly before the July 31 trade deadline hit, but the 30-year-old third baseman has at least done just that, hit a bit, since arriving in the Bronx.
His .253 batting average, four home runs, 13 RBI and 108 wRC+ over 45 games with the Yankees aren't MVP-caliber numbers by any stretch of the imagination, but they represent a significant improvement over the .229 batting average, seven home runs, 32 RBI and 89 wRC+ he put up in 77 games with the Padres.
Headley has at least begun to rebuild his offensive profile with the Yankees, showing that he's more than a solid glove who offers little at the plate.
If he can shake off the bruised jaw that he suffered after taking a pitch from Tampa Bay's Jake McGee to the face and swings a solid bat for the rest of the season, Headley could once again become a hot name on the rumor mill once the offseason hits.
Raul Ibanez, DH, Kansas City Royals
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Eventually, Father Time catches up to everyone—even Raul Ibanez.
The 42-year-old looks his age this season, hitting a combined .169 with a .549 OPS over 85 games for the Los Angeles Angels and Kansas City Royals. Retirement is no longer knocking on the door, it's coming awfully close to smashing the door into small pieces.
So it's fair to say that 2014 likely represents Ibanez's last chance to win a World Series ring. He has appeared in the Fall Classic once before, with Philadelphia in 2009, but the Phillies dropped that series to the New York Yankees in six games, despite Ibanez hitting .304 with a home run and four RBI.
Of course, with its current slide, Kansas City no longer looks like the lock for the playoffs that it did a month ago, and Ibanez's sparse playing time has left him a spectator more often than not.
But his postseason experience, coupled with a history of postseason heroics, the latest coming in 2012 when he became the first player in baseball history to hit three home runs in the ninth inning or later in the same postseason, gives him a shot at making Kansas City's playoff roster.
A big hit here or there down the stretch for the Royals would go a long way toward solidifying that shot.
Rymer Liriano, OF, San Diego Padres
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San Diego is giving Rymer Liriano, named the team's No. 6 prospect heading into the season by Baseball America, every opportunity to prove that he's ready to contribute on a full-time basis in 2015.
There have been flashes of brilliance, including a mammoth 427-foot home run against Colorado at Petco Park and a handful of acrobatic catches in the outfield. But the 23-year-old hasn't been tearing the cover off the ball, hitting only .205 with three extra-base hits and a .537 OPS in 30 games.
San Diego's 2015 outfield is a crowded one, with Cameron Maybin, Seth Smith, Will Venable and the oft-injured Carlos Quentin all under contract. While Liriano may be the most naturally gifted of the group, he still has minor league options remaining, making it a long shot for him to break camp with the club.
That said, new Padres general manager A.J. Preller has no longstanding ties to any of the team's veteran outfielders, and he surely realizes that Liriano is a major part of the team's future. If the 23-year-old can get into a groove over the season's final two weeks, it's not crazy to think that Preller could look to move one of his veterans this winter to clear a path for Liriano to be one of the team's everyday players in 2015.
Trevor May, SP, Minnesota Twins
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For as poorly as Minnesota's starting rotation has performed this season—the group's 5.09 ERA is the worst in baseball, its 1.44 WHIP trailing only Texas (1.48)—four-fifths of the rotation is already set for 2015.
Kyle Gibson, Phil Hughes, Tommy Milone and Ricky Nolasco are all going to be toeing the rubber for the Twins next season, leaving only one spot in the rotation up for grabs.
Trevor May, the team's No. 8 prospect (and fifth-best pitching prospect) heading into the season, according to Baseball America, will be among those competing for that final spot in spring training. But the 24-year-old has been shaky at best over the first seven starts of his major league career.
Over his first five appearances (four starts), May pitched to a 10.42 ERA and 2.32 WHIP, walking nearly as many batters (14) as he struck out (15).
But he's been a different pitcher over his last three starts, pitching to a 4.50 ERA and 1.31 WHIP, including a career-best performance against Chicago his last time out, allowing three earned runs and five hits over six innings of work and issuing no walks while striking out 10 batters.
"I've always kind of been a strikeout guy," May told the St. Paul Pioneer Press' Mike Berardino after the game. "I had gotten away from it since I was called up. It's easy to do that when you're at a different level. Everything is bigger than it should be in your mind. Today I told myself I'm going to be aggressive all day. If they're going to beat me, they're going to beat an aggressive me."
With only two starts left this season—Sept. 20 against Cleveland and Sept. 26 at Detroit—May will need to stay on the attack if he hopes to have an advantage over the competition for that final rotation spot in the spring.
Hanley Ramirez, SS, Los Angeles Dodgers
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When he's healthy, few players can impact a game with their bat like Hanley Ramirez can.
The problem, of course, is that Ramirez hasn't been healthy for nearly two years, with a litany of injuries keeping him sidelined for extended periods of time, seeming to strike just as he's getting into a groove at the plate.
Case in point: Ramirez's performance shortly after being activated from his latest trip to the disabled list on August 24.
“A couple days ago he had three hits and hit a homer to tie the game," manager Don Mattingly remarked to the Los Angeles Times' Steve Dilbeck in early September. "He gets hurt in that game (Aug. 29) and really hasn't been as good since that.”
Over the five games that followed his three-hit performance, Ramirez went 0-for-19, reaching base only twice on a pair of walks. In eight games since, he's hit .438 (14-for-32) with a pair of doubles and eight RBI.
While a switch from shortstop to third base seems inevitable in 2015, that's not going to negatively impact Ramirez's earning power as a free agent after the season. Another injury might.
A strong, healthy finish to the regular season won't erase questions and concerns about his durability, but it'll certainly help to make them less of a focal point in offseason negotiations than they might otherwise be.
Nick Tropeano, SP, Houston Astros
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If asked to name Houston's top young talent, Nick Tropeano would be pretty far down the list of names that we could come up with.
Yet the 24-year-old right-hander, named the team's No. 13 prospect by MLB.com, finds himself in position to make a case for a rotation spot in the big leagues next season.
Tropeano, who went 9-5 with a 3.03 ERA and 0.98 WHIP in 23 games (20 starts) for Houston's Triple-A affiliate in Oklahoma City, was impressive in his major league debut, holding Seattle to two runs over five innings Sept. 10, walking two while striking out five.
After Scott Feldman, Dallas Keuchel and Collin McHugh, Houston's rotation heading into 2015 is anything but a finished product.
With two starts left on the season—Sept. 16 vs. Cleveland and Sept. 22 at Texas—the Long Island, New York, native has a chance to leave a long-lasting impression on general manager Jeff Luhnow, who undoubtedly will have a hand in piecing together the team's future rotation with whomever he hires as Houston's next manager.
Unless otherwise noted, all statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs and are current through games of Sept. 15. All salary information courtesy of Cot's Contracts.
Hit me up on Twitter to talk all things baseball: @RickWeinerBR
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