Home for the holidays has a meaning all its own for Santa Barbara’s baseball gentry.
Several local Major Leaguers will have to adjust to a new home away-from-home, while a few others are still wondering where their home plate might be.
The Hot Stove League — the time-worn term for offseason maneuvering in the game of baseball — has even put 2020 Cy Young Award-winner Shane Bieber on the edge of his hot seat.
The Cleveland Guardians’ ace, who pitched UC Santa Barbara to the College World Series in 2016, was being mentioned in trade talks all the way up to the start of last week’s Major League Baseball Winter Meetings in San Diego.
The Guardians have been major league Ebeneezer Scrooges when it’s come to rewarding their aces with big contracts.
They traded Corey Kluber after he won two Cy Young Awards, and dealt Trevor Bauer the year before he won his Cy Young with Cincinnati.
Cleveland has also traded Carlos Carrasco and Mike Clevinger before they could demand a big sack of cash.
Bieber declined arbitration last year when he signed a one-year contract worth $6 million. MLB Trade Rumors estimates he would be awarded about $10.7 million if he goes to arbitration before the start of next season.
It makes you wonder if Cleveland will deal him now or next year, just before he becomes a free agent in 2025.
Chris Antonetti, the club’s president of baseball operations, insists that it won’t be now.
“We have every intention of trying to contend next year and trying to win a World Series,” he said, “and Shane Bieber will be a big part of that for us.”
Several other local baseball stars have had their situations stoked in the Hot Stove:
Gabe Speier, Seattle Mariners
Gabe Speier has been passed around like a Christmas fruitcake the last decade. The left-handed pitcher found himself with his sixth professional organization in 10 seasons last month when the Seattle Mariners claimed him off waivers from the Kansas City Royals.
The Boston Red Sox got Speier’s ball rolling by selecting him right out of Dos Pueblos High School in the 19th round of the 2013 MLB First-Year Player Draft.
He was traded four times in the next three years: to Detroit in December of 2014, to Atlanta in November of 2015, and then — before throwing even one pitch for the Braves — to Arizona just a month later.
Speier, whose great-uncle Chris Speier began his 19-year MLB career as an All-Star shortstop with the San Francisco Giants, finally found some staying power after the Diamondbacks traded him to Kansas City early in the 2018 season.
He made his Major League debut with the Royals a year later and spent much of the next four seasons shuttling between Triple-A Omaha and Kansas City.
He made a career-high 17 appearances in the big leagues last season, posting an earned run average of 2.33 with 14 strikeouts in 19⅓ innings. He mostly faced left-handed batters — a role that Seattle expects him to fill on its club.
“Both Gabe Speier and Brennan Bernardino are good at getting the lefties and they’ve got the physical stuff to excel in that role,” said Jerry Dipoto, the Mariners’ president of baseball operations.
Andrew Vasquez, Philadelphia Phillies
Few pitchers have had an odder baseball odyssey than Andrew Vasquez.
The 6-foot-6 lefthander pitched for three different organizations last summer — Toronto, Philadelphia and San Francisco.
He’s now set for a redux with the Phillies after they claimed him off waivers last month.
Vasquez’s baseball journey got off to a strange start in Santa Barbara. He earned Louisville Slugger Freshman All-America honors at UCSB in 2012 after posting a record of 6-3 and earned run average of 1.93. His 104 strikeouts that season marked the first time since Barry Zito that a Gaucho freshman had whiffed more than 100.
But Vasquez was as wild as he was unhittable, walking 63 that season. It got no better in the two years that followed.
He pitched only 20 innings during his junior year of 2014 when UCSB’s staff loaded up with such future major leaguers as Bieber and Greg Mahle, as well as with Justin Jacome and Austin Pettibone.
He transferred across town to Westmont College in search of more innings and responded by posting a 7-1 record and 3.04 ERA for the NAIA Warriors.
His 124 strikeouts intrigued the Minnesota Twins enough to ignore his 54 walks and draft him in the 32nd round of the 2015 Draft.
They developed him over parts of six minor league seasons and finally gave him nine big-league appearances in 2018. They sent him back to the minors the next season.
“After a rough 2019, I was struggling to get back to the big leagues,” Vasquez said. “But thinking back on that initial second chance from Westmont, I decided I wasn’t ever going to give up again.
“It’s hard to express everything that happened along the way, but a lot of it goes back to Westmont giving me that first second chance, and it was the reason I decided to come back to baseball.”
Vasquez was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2021 and soon found himself in the middle of a pennant race. He allowed only one hit in two appearances, striking out three in 1⅔ innings.
He followed that up with a strong minor-league season in Triple-A last summer, striking out 35% of the batters he faced with a 2.23 ERA.
He also pitched 10 games in the majors — nine for Toronto and one for San Francisco — and is expected to get a good look from the Phillies in the next spring training.
“Baseball is a game of adjustments,” Vasquez once said, “so I would say life had its way of teaching me what I needed to adjust.”
Danny Duffy, Free Agent
Former Cabrillo High School star Danny Duffy has already logged 11 seasons in the majors, winning 68 games and striking out 1,048 batters in 234 appearances with the Kansas City Royals. He helped pitch them to the World Series in both 2014 and 2015.
He was hoping to live a childhood dream after getting traded to the Dodgers in the middle of the 2021 season. He’d been pitching well for the Royals that summer, with a 2.51 ERA and 65 strikeouts over 61 innings.
A flexor tendon injury, however, prevented him from throwing even one pitch for the Dodgers over the last 1½ seasons.
The Dodgers recently declined the $7 million option they had on his contract for next season. He’s now awaiting offers at a considerable discount — possibly even from the Dodgers.
“I just think I have a lot left in the tank,” he said during his rehabilitation process.
But Duffy hasn’t been just waiting by the phone. He’s been actively involved in erecting lights at his old high school diamond, even donating up to $1.5 million of the cost. The lights are expected to be ready by next season.
And so is Duffy.
James McCann, New York Mets
Christmas arrived early two years ago this Monday for former Dos Pueblos High star James McCann when he got a payday that most baseball players only dream about. He signed a free-agent contract with the New York Mets worth $40.6 million over four years.
But the good spirit of Christmas Past has been replaced by a ghostly Christmas Present. High expectations go hand-in-hand with high income, and McCann hasn’t met them to the Mets’ satisfaction.
The 32-year-old catcher, an All-Star for the Chicago White Sox in 2019, slumped to a batting average of .232 in 2021 — an acceptable statistic for most catchers, but not for hard-boiled New Yorkers when you’re making more than $10 million a year.
Internet blogs turned vicious last season when two major injuries kept McCann off the field for all but 61 games and dropped his batting average to .195.
The Mets, who have top-rated MLB catching prospect Francisco Álvarez waiting in the wings, were reportedly thinking about dealing McCann to rid them of the final two years of his contract.
His name got floated at last week’s Baseball Winter Meetings as buoyantly as a beach ball on nearby San Diego Bay.
The St. Louis Cardinals were supposedly interested before signing free agent catcher Willson Contreras on Wednesday.
The Texas Rangers became a possible trade destination after they signed free-agent pitcher Jacob deGrom. The former Mets’ ace pitched his best games with McCann behind the plate and he was hoping that he could join him in Arlington.
But the Mets are also aware of McCann’s defensive value behind the plate. Opponents batted only .224 against their pitchers when he called the game. They weren’t nearly as successful when pitching to New York’s other catchers.
McCann was also their nominee for last season’s Roberto Clemente Award, an honor that goes to the player who “best exemplifies the game of baseball, sportsmanship, community involvement and the individual’s contribution to his team.”
The Mets balked at jettisoning him during the Winter Meetings because they also know the kind of mentor he can be for Álvarez.
They sent McCann to Double-A Binghamton instead of Triple-A Syracuse for both of his injury rehab assignments last summer so he could work with him. Álvarez’s defense and pitch-calling aren’t quite ready for the big leagues.
McCann, in turn, offered nothing but good thoughts about the player who will eventually take his job.
“I don’t root for him to fail,” he said. “I want him to have success, I want him to have a phenomenal career.
“I hope that the things I talked to him about … he can take with him in his career. Whenever he does get here, I’m going to be rooting for him. Regardless of my status, I’m going to root for him.”
And that alone should have Mets fans rooting for McCann, too.