Overview:
Free agents James McCann and Dillon Tate remain unsigned while Kevin Gowdy and Michael Stefanic are both picked up by the Toronto Blue Jays
The timing of Major League Baseball’s winter meetings clashes with the holiday season as badly as an Easter service on Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras.
Breaking bread at Thanksgiving and Christmas, or Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, is the best way to strengthen family ties.
But ‘tis the season when the family ties in baseball go stale from craving a different kind of bread.
Players change teams — and teams change players — as often as jockstraps while searching for a more self-serving, financial fit.
Dos Pueblos High School graduate James McCann has played for four clubs during his 11 seasons in the Major Leagues, and he’s certain to sign with a fifth in the next few days.
McCann, a dependable catcher and revered locker-room presence for the Baltimore Orioles the last two years, entered free agency in October.
The chances of returning to Baltimore next season were reduced to nil when the team signed Gary Sánchez — another veteran catcher — on Dec. 10.
But plenty of other teams need catching help. Both the Boston Red Sox and Cincinnati Reds are reportedly interested in McCann.
He’ll turn 35 in June, but he vowed to continue playing “wherever I’m given a major league uniform.”
Two other local players — pitcher Kevin Gowdy from Santa Barbara High and infielder Michael Stefanic from Westmont College — will be in different MLB training camps, as well, in the spring.
Gowdy, the Philadelphia Phillies’ second-round draft pick in 2016, switched to his fourth organization when he signed with the Toronto Blue Jays earlier this month.
He posted an earned-run average of 4.38 last summer with the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Triple-A farm club in Oklahoma City.
The big-league roster of the World Series champions, however, is one of the toughest to crack.
Gowdy, 27, will have a better chance of making his big-league debut in Toronto, where the team’s ERA ranked 22nd out of 30 MLB teams last season.
An invitation to Major League spring training was included with his minor-league contract.
Stefanic, 28, got basically the same deal from the Blue Jays.
He’s torn up minor-league pitching with a .331 batting average ever since the Angels signed him out of Westmont in 2018.
He also played 90 big-league games for the Los Angeles Angels over the course of the last three seasons. He’s hit .232 in 264 plate appearances.
He must work his way up Toronto’s long depth chart at second or third base, but no challenge has ever disuaded the undrafted infielder from Westmont.
Family Guardian
Shane Bieber, who pitched UC Santa Barbara to the College World Series in 2016, resisted baseball’s version of musical chairs this offseason.
The ace of the Cleveland Guardians rejoined them after two months of free agency. He agreed to a one-year, $14 million contract that includes a player option of $16 million for 2026.
Bieber, who needed Tommy John surgery last April to repair an elbow ligament, figured that home was the best place to heal.
“That was big for me — to feel confident in my rehab and where I’m at right now,” he said during a news conference conducted on Zoom.
“Nobody knows me as well as Cleveland does, and vice versa, so I’m happy to be continuing with them.”
He watched Matthew Boyd’s own rehabilitation from Tommy John surgery, which returned him to the mound for eight starts during Cleveland’s playoff run last season.
“I was able to have plenty of productive conversations with Matt,” Bieber said. “In a sense, that’s the landscape I’m looking at for 2025. … They took extremely good care of him.”
Bieber was pursued by several other teams the last two months even though he won’t pitch in a game until midway through next season.
He’s now throwing three days a week.
“I’m at 90 feet, two sets, 25 (pitches), and feeling really good,” he said.
His résumé was one of the best in this year’s free-agent pool of starting pitchers: a win-loss record of 62-32 and 3.22 ERA over the last seven seasons.
Bieber’s first big splash came when he was named the Most Valuable Player at the 2019 MLB All-Star Game before a hometown crowd at Progressive Field.
He followed that up in 2020 by winning the Cy Young Award as the American League’s best pitcher.
“I had plenty of great meetings and beneficial and progressive meetings with other ballclubs,” he said. “Everybody handled everything first-class all the way, and I’ve got great things to say about plenty of other organizations.
“Ultimately, Cleveland made the call and I was happy to receive it and come to terms.
“My family’s ecstatic. It was very clearly the right decision for not only myself, but my family, and we’re excited to continue it.”
His wife, Kara, is expecting their first child in February. She gave her reaction to her husband’s signing on Instagram: “Baby b gets to be a Guardian and live next to auntie Em.”
Cleveland’s Clan
Bieber’s kinship with teammates remained strong throughout last season even though he did “the lion’s share of my rehab in Arizona” at Tempe SPORT Clinic.
“I was trying to make a trip at least once a month and see the guys whether it was in Cleveland or on the road,” he said.
When asked if it felt bittersweet to watch the Guardians make the playoffs, he replied, “Call it what you want, I just wished I was out there contributing.”
“I was able to compartmentalize because those are some of my great friends out there and they’re having their postseason moments — and regular-season moments, for that matter,” Bieber continued. “And what a great group. What a fun group.
“I was just happy to be along for the ride and kind of provide input where I could. Everybody was very receptive to whatever tidbits of advice I may have offered up.”
Bieber is known to be a diligent innovator with impeccable command and spin rate of his pitches. He was “introducing new shapes and new sequences” to his repertoire when he injured his elbow last April.
He’s anxious to continue that development.
“I will continue to push, push, push,” Bieber said. “I always want five more throws, one more set, whatever it may be.
“But I’m thankful when I lay my head on the pillow at night that I’ve surrounded myself with people who can pull, pull, pull. I think that’s a good relationship to have as an athlete.
“You want to push the timetable and get back as soon as possible, but ultimately the people with the degrees and the smarts and the experience in this field of rehabilitation — they know what’s best for you.”
Feeling of Relief
Baseball’s rules of arbitration will keep two local relievers on the same big-league teams next season.
Former Gaucho Kyle Nelson of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Dos Pueblos High graduate Gabe Speier of the Seattle Mariners were both tendered salary arbitration by their teams.
But Dillon Tate, Bieber’s teammate on UCSB’s NCAA Tournament team of 2015, made a less fortunate entry into free agency last month when the Blue Jays refused to offer the same.
He had been pitching to McCann in Baltimore at the start of last season, but now they’re both waiting to see where the winds of winter take them next.
Michael McGreevy, ace pitcher of the Gauchos’ 2021 NCAA team, is already set for the spring after having made his MLB debut with the St. Louis Cardinals late last season.
His 3-0 record and 1.96 ERA in four appearances has put him in the thick of the club’s youth movement.
“I’m excited,” Cardinals’ manager Oli Marmol said. “We need to build this group and get them ready to go on a real run.
“Not just compete and make the playoffs … This is a group that we need to have come together and continue to develop them.”
That is, until the next winter of change blows through.
