BWDIK: Bedard, Carter, Fernandez, Lavallee, Pivetta, Smith, Zaidi
Junior National Team alum Cade Smith (Abbotsford, B.C.) was named the second-best reliever in the majors by the MLB Network last month.
February 16, 2025
By Kevin Glew
Canadian Baseball Network
Some Canadian baseball news and notes from the past week:
Pivetta to become highest paid Canadian pitcher
Nick Pivetta (Victoria, B.C.) has signed a four-year, $55-million contract with the San Diego Padres, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan.
The Padres have not officially announced the deal, which is dependent on a physical.
According to Passan, it’s a backloaded contract. Pivetta will receive a $3-million signing bonus and a $1-million salary in 2025. He will be paid $19 million in 2026, $14 million in 2027 and $18 million in 2028. It also includes opt-outs after the second and third years.
The $55 million is the largest amount any Canadian pitcher has secured in a major league contract. Pivetta, however, will have to wait until 2026 to eclipse the single-season record for highest salary by a Canuck hurler. The $14 million that Ryan Dempster (Gibsons, B.C.) earned with the Chicago Cubs in 2012 is currently the highest. The most that a pitcher with a Canadian citizenship has earned in a big-league season is the $18 million that Jameson Taillon was paid last season by the Cubs. Taillon’s parents were born in Canada.
Pivetta, who turned 32 on Friday, declined the $21.05 million qualifying offer made to him by the Boston Red Sox on November 20. That meant that the team that signed him would have to surrender a compensatory pick prior to the third round in this year’s draft to the Red Sox.
The Junior National Team alum, who made $7.5 million in 2024, went 6-12 with a 4.14 ERA in 27 games (26 starts) for the Red Sox in 2024. He struck out 172 batters in 145 2/3 innings.
Selected in the fourth round of the 2013 MLB draft by the Washington Nationals, Pivetta has pitched in eight major league seasons for the Philadelphia Phillies and Red Sox. He owns a career 56-71 record and a 4.76 ERA in 223 games (178 starts).
Smith reacts to being named second-best reliever by MLB Network
Last month, the MLB Network ranked right-hander Cade Smith (Abbotsford, B.C.) the second-best relief pitcher in the majors.
“It’s high praise and hopefully one day I’m worthy of it, but it’s not something that I can control. And so it’s not something that’s going to shift the way that I do things,” Smith told reporters on Friday when asked about the MLB Network ranking.
But the high ranking was merited after Smith put together one of the best major league rookie seasons by a Canadian relief pitcher. The 25-year-old right-hander posted a 6-1 record and a 1.91 ERA in 74 relief appearances and struck out 103 batters in 75 1/3 innings.
In 2024, Smith topped all Canadian pitchers in ERA, games, holds (28), WAR (2.5), WHIP (0.90) and opponents’ batting average (.190). Among rookie major league relievers, he ranked first in innings pitched, tied for first in wins and second in games, strikeouts and holds. His dominance continued in the playoffs when he appeared in nine games for the Guardians, which set a record for most by a Canadian pitcher in a single postseason. His 12 strikeouts in the American League Division Series were a Division Series record for a reliever.
Saddest day in Canadian baseball history
February 16th just might be the saddest day in Canadian baseball history. It was on this date in 2012 that Montreal Expos legend Gary Carter died of brain cancer. Eight years later, Tony Fernandez died from a stroke and kidney complications.
Both of them were 57 — too young to have left us.
Former Orioles teammates Bautista and Bautista to enter Canadian ball hall together
Jose Bautista and Erik Bedard (Navan, Ont.) were elected to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame on Wednesday. The two played together on the Baltimore Orioles in 2004. Bautista batted .273 in 16 games with the O’s that season but also spent spring training with the club. Bedard went 6-10 with a 4.59 ERA in 27 appearances (26 starts).
“He’s a good dude,” Bautista said of Bedard in the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame Zoom media call on Wednesday afternoon.
The two used to eat meals together. Bautista said Bedard showed him where to go and where not to go in the city of Baltimore.
Who was the starting pitcher for Canada’s first World Baseball Classic game?
It was Bedard.
On March 7, 2006, the then 27-year-old left-hander started against South Africa at Scottsdale Stadium in Arizona, and tossed four scoreless innings. He allowed two hits and struck out six batters.
Baseball Canada director of national teams, Greg Hamilton, who was also elected to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame on Wednesday, lauded Bedard’s performance in that contest in the Hall’s Zoom media call. But he also recalled that Canada’s manager Ernie Whitt had to “empty the bullpen” after Bedard to secure an 11-8 win.
After Bedard, Canada used Paul Quantrill (Port Hope, Ont.), Rheal Cormier (Cap-Pele, N.B.), Mike Meyers (Tillsonburg, Ont.), Chris Reitsma (Calgary, Alta.) and Jesse Crain (Toronto, Ont.) to close out the contest. Crain got the save.
Zaidi returns to Dodgers
Farhan Zaidi (Sudbury, Ont.) has returned to the Los Angeles Dodgers as a special advisor.
He has headed back to the Dodgers after being relieved of his duties as the San Francisco Giants’ president of baseball operations in September. He had served in that post since 2018 and earned MLB’s Executive of the Year Award in 2021 when the Giants won a franchise-record 107 games.
Prior to his tenure with the Giants, Zaidi was the Dodgers general manager from 2014 to 2018. Under his leadership, the Dodgers won four consecutive division titles, advanced to the National League Championship Series three times and to the World Series twice.
Before his first stretch with the Dodgers, Zaidi spent a decade with the Oakland Athletics, where he started as a baseball operations analyst in 2005 before being promoted to director of baseball operations in 2009, and assistant general manager/director of baseball operations in 2014.
Lavallee promoted to manage in double-A by Blue Jays
Brent Lavallee (North Delta, B.C.), who has managed the Blue Jays’ class-A Vancouver Canadians for the past three seasons, has been promoted to the double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats.
Lavallee will become the 12th manager in Fisher Cats’ history. He will replace Cesar Martin, who piloted the Fisher Cats for the past four seasons.
Lavallee guided High-A Vancouver to the Northwest League finals in all three of his seasons as skipper of the club. In total, he compiled a 212-177 record with the Canadians and led them to a league championship in 2023. He was also named Northwest League Manager of the Year after last season.
Hodgson discovers his roots
“I didn’t know I was Black.”
That’s the headline of the excellent CBC story written by Bob Mersereau about Paul Hodgson (Marysville, N.B.), the second Canadian-born player to suit up with the Blue Jays. The story was published yesterday.
Mersereau’s outstanding article tells the story of how Hodgson was adopted by Paul and Bonnie Hodgson as a child, but in the early 80s, Hodgson’s adoptive father took him aside to share a family secret: his biological father was Black.
“He says, ‘Your mother doesn’t know I’m doing this, but I feel that I have to tell you. You’re getting married and there’s a chance you could have a Black child.’ I didn’t know I was Black, I didn’t know I was anything,” Hodgson told Mersereau.
In recent years, Hodgson, with help from his partner, Lisa, tracked down and visited his biological father Jerry Arceneaux in Georgia.
You can read the full story here.
Thirty-eight years ago, the Expos signed Pascual Perez
It was 38 years ago today that the Montreal Expos signed right-hander Pascual Perez to a minor league contract. It turned out to be a great decision. Perez would pitch parts of three seasons with the Expos from 1987 to 1989. And what many tend to forget about Perez is that beyond his enthusiasm, energy and zaniness on the field, he was an excellent pitcher. In 10 starts for the Expos in 1987, he went 7-0 with a 2.30 ERA. He followed that up with 12 wins and a 2.44 ERA in 27 starts in 1988 and a 3.31 ERA in 33 appearances in 1989. You can watch some fun Expos highlights of him by clicking on the following video.