{"id":9833,"date":"2017-12-15T13:52:00","date_gmt":"2017-12-15T18:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/?p=9833"},"modified":"2024-12-28T10:36:25","modified_gmt":"2024-12-28T15:36:25","slug":"zack-cozart-signs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2017\/12\/15\/zack-cozart-signs\/","title":{"rendered":"Zack Cozart signs with the Los Angeles Angels"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Free agent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/cozarza01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Zack Cozart<\/a>\u00a0has signed a three-year deal with the <a href=\"lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/mlb-teams\/los-angeles-angels\/\" target=\"_self\">Los Angeles Angels<\/a>. The deal keeps him in an Angels uniform through the 2020 season.\u00a0 Jon Heyman reports that the deal is worth $38 million over the three years.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Angels?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Angels<\/a> have agreed to terms on a three-year contract with INF Zack Cozart.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Angels PR (@LAAngelsPR) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LAAngelsPR\/status\/941741183839092736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 15, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Angels agree to deal with cozart. 38M for 3 years <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Ken_Rosenthal?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@Ken_Rosenthal<\/a> reported. That makes two great shortstops for them. Big winter in Anaheim.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JonHeyman\/status\/941743914058420226?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 15, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Zack Cozart signs with the Los Angeles Angels<\/h2>\n<p>Cozart, 31, played in 122 games for the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/cincinnati-reds\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cincinnati Reds<\/a><\/strong> last season. He hit .297\/.385\/.548\u00a0with 24\u00a0home runs and 63 RBI in 136 games. Cozart has played solid defense throughout his career and finished 2017 with a .975 fielding percentage and a 4.9 WAR; however, he was not a huge threat on the base paths, ending the year with three stolen bases. Overall, Cozart had a great season last year as he was able to make his first all-star appearance in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Cozart has played seven seasons in the majors, all of them with Cincinnati. He has hit\u00a0.254\/.305\/.411 in his career with 82 home runs, 280 RBI, and 21 stolen bases.<\/p>\n<p>The Reds are currently in a rebuild and decided to not extend Cozart a $17.4 million qualifying offer. Instead, they are looking to test the market for shortstops in free agency. Cincinnati did not extend a QO to Cozart in order to avoid their payroll going over $100 million before the off-season begins. While it&#8217;s understandable for the Reds to be concerned about their payroll, Cozart has been a huge help in the Queen City. The Reds have been sellers at the trade deadline for some time and have seen a lot of turnover. It would be nice to sign a player such as Cozart who the Reds can rely on as they continue to rebuild.<\/p>\n<p>The 31-year-old shortstop has made two playoff appearances in his career, the first coming in the 2012\u00a0NLDS against the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/san-francisco-giants\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">San Francisco Giants<\/a><\/strong>, and the other coming in the 2013\u00a0wild-card game against the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/pittsburgh-pirates\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pittsburgh\u00a0Pirates<\/a><\/strong>. Cozart hit .238\/.333\/.238 against the Giants in 2012, but only managed to get a walk in the 2013 wild-card game against the Pirates.<\/p>\n<p>It is believed that Cozart will play third base for the Angels, transitioning from his normal position of shortstop.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"kiy2d_jQRhRKJQo8cKynQw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/854453744\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'kiy2d_jQRhRKJQo8cKynQw',sig:'WewYBzzChydofg0pflpXcTv0O-2b9QcNEz9wOQjjsL0=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'854453744',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Free agent Zack Cozart\u00a0has signed a three-year deal with the Los Angeles Angels. The deal keeps him in an Angels uniform through the 2020 season.\u00a0 Jon Heyman reports that the deal is worth $38 million over the three years. The #Angels have agreed to terms on a three-year contract with INF Zack Cozart. &mdash; Angels [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2133,"featured_media":9841,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35,16,1071],"tags":[68,124,69,2262,456],"class_list":["post-9833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-angels","category-mlb","tag-baseball","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-free-agency","tag-zack-cozart"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2133"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}