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Pablo Reyes Elects Free Agency

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Pablo Reyes elected free agency after going unclaimed on waivers, according to the MLB.com transaction tracker. The Yankees had designated the out-of-options utilityman for assignment when they activated Giancarlo Stanton on Monday.

Reyes had been on New York’s active roster for the first two and a half months of the season. He broke camp after signing an offseason minor league deal. There wasn’t much playing time available for either Reyes or Oswald Peraza, another utility infielder who can’t be optioned. The Yankees essentially needed to decide between the two players once Stanton returned from his elbow injuries. They gave a longer leash to the 25-year-old Peraza, a former highly-regarded prospect whose bat has stalled in recent seasons.

The righty-hitting Reyes is a veteran journeyman whose primary asset is his versatility off the bench. He made 24 appearances overall but was only penciled into the starting lineup on seven occasions — four times at second base, twice at third base, and once in right field. He batted .194 in 34 trips to the plate. Reyes had similarly brief playing time with the Red Sox and Mets last season. His best season came two years ago, when he hit .287/.339/.377 in 64 games with Boston.

Reyes returns to free agency as a lifetime .245/.305/.342 hitter in a little over 600 MLB plate appearances. He has some experience at every position aside from catcher. He might be limited to minor league offers but should find interest as a depth piece. Reyes owns a .278/.349/.452 line in nearly 400 career Triple-A games.

Yankees Select Jayvien Sandridge

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The Yankees announced today that they have selected the contract of left-hander Jayvien Sandridge. He’ll take the active roster spot of right-hander Yerry De los Santos, who has been placed on the 15-day injured list with right elbow discomfort. To open a 40-man spot, infielder/outfielder Oswaldo Cabrera has been transferred to the 60-day injured list.

De los Santos has given the Yankees 20 innings this year while only allowing 1.80 earned runs per nine. That level of performance is surely not sustainable with a 14% strikeout rate and 12.9% walk rate. He’s managed to keep runs off the board by having a huge 88.2% strand rate and no home runs allowed on the season.

The Yankees haven’t provided any information about how long they expect him to be out, though an elbow injury is naturally always a concern for a pitcher. More information is likely to be forthcoming in the near future.

For now, his IL placement opens a path for Sandridge to get to the big leagues for the first time. The 26-year-old southpaw has spent time in the minors with the Orioles, Reds and Padres without getting called to the majors. He reached minor league free agency at the end of last year and signed a minors deal with the Yankees.

Sandridge started the season on the injured list but was able to get back on the mound by the middle of May. He made a few rehab appearances at lower levels before moving up to Triple-A. Combined, he has thrown 12 innings this year with four earned runs allowed. He has walked six opponents but also struck out 20, for respective rates of 11.8% and 39.2%.

That’s generally been Sandridge’s recipe throughout his minor league career. From 2021 to 2024, he tossed 173 2/3 innings for various minor clubs with a 3.94 ERA. His 18.2% walk rate in that time was massive but he also struck out 33.7% of batters faced.

As of July of last year, FanGraphs considered Sandridge to be one of the top 20 prospects in the Padres’ system. That report noted that his fastball was sitting in the upper 90s but that controlling his slider is his biggest issue, throwing out Jake Diekman as a potential ceiling comp since Diekman carved out a nice career despite consistently high walk rates.

The Yankees came into today with the only lefty in the bullpen being Tim Hill, a veteran soft-tossing ground ball guy. Sandridge will give them a second southpaw with a different profile. Since this is his first big league call, he has a full slate of options and can be cheaply controlled for years to come, though he’ll obviously have to perform well enough to hold his 40-man roster spot.

As for Cabrera, his transfer to the 60-day IL is not a surprise. He suffered a grisly ankle injury in the middle of May and underwent surgery. He’s technically able to be reinstated 60 days from that initial IL placement, so mid-July, but he’s expected to miss most or all of the remainder of the season.

Photo courtesy of Nathan Ray Seebeck, Imagn Images

Yankees Reinstate JT Brubaker

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The Yankees announced that right-hander JT Brubaker has been reinstated from the 60-day injured list. Robert Murray of FanSided reported on Brubaker’s activation prior to the official announcement. The 40-man roster is now full. Right-hander Scott Effross was optioned after last night’s game in a corresponding active roster move.

Brubaker, now 31, has technically been a Yankee for about a year and a half but is still looking to make his official debut in pinstripes. The Yankees acquired him from the Pirates in March of 2024, sending a player to be named later or cash to Pittsburgh in exchange for Brubaker and international bonus pool space. The PTBNL was later named as infielder Keiner Delgado.

In April of 2023, about a year before the trade, Brubaker had undergone Tommy John surgery. At the time of the deal, the Yankees surely expected a few more months of rehab but a few speed bumps have popped up and continually kept him on the shelf. He started a rehab assignment in June of last year but an oblique strain put him back on ice in July. He started a new rehab assignment in September but made just three outings that month before the winter kicked in.

The expectation was that he would be healthy coming into 2025. He and the Yanks avoided arbitration by agreeing to a salary of $1.82MM. Unfortunately, he suffered an unusual injury during the spring, somehow breaking three ribs while trying to avoid a comebacker. He landed on the 15-day IL to start the season and was on the 60-day version by the first day of April. He was able to start a rehab assignment a month ago and tossed 21 1/3 minor league innings with a 2.95 earned run average.

The Yanks stretched Brubaker out on his rehab assignment, getting to five innings in his most recent appearance, and he was also a starter as a Pirate. With Pittsburgh, he had a 4.99 ERA in 315 2/3 innings with a 23.3% strikeout rate, 7.8% walk rate and 44% ground ball rate.

He will probably be in a long relief role for the Yanks, behind the rotation of Max Fried, Carlos Rodón, Clarke Schmidt, Will Warren and Ryan Yarbrough. Brubaker has over five years of big league service time and therefore can’t be optioned to the minors without his consent. If he stays on the roster through the end of the year, he’ll have exactly six years of service time and will qualify for free agency.

Photo courtesy of Dave Nelson, Imagn Images

Jake Cousins To Undergo Tommy John Surgery

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Right-hander Jake Cousins will undergo Tommy John surgery. Manager Aaron Boone informed members of the beat today, including Brendan Kuty of The Athletic. Cousins will therefore miss the entire 2025 season and at least the first half of 2026 as well. He is already on the 60-day injured list.

The news is obviously brutal for Cousins but it’s not shocking, as his arm has been troubling him all year. When camp opened in mid-February, it was reported that Cousins was already halfway through a shutdown period of three to four weeks due to a forearm strain. When infielder/outfielder Pablo Reyes cracked the Opening Day roster, Cousins was transferred to the 60-day IL as the corresponding move, meaning he had effectively been written off for the first two months of the season.

He did start a rehab assignment in early June but that lasted for only two appearances. He was shut down from that with a setback that Boone said “seems to be a UCL injury.” A couple of days ago, Boone said that things were trending towards a Tommy John surgery, which is now the confirmed path.

That procedure usually comes with a recovery timeline of 14 to 18 months. Cousins will therefore miss all of the current campaign. He’ll have a shot at returning late in 2026 but that won’t be guaranteed.

Between the Brewers and Yankees, he has logged 90 2/3 big league innings with a 2.78 earned run average. His 14.8% walk rate is quite high but he has also punched out 32.6% of hitters and got grounders on 47.1% of balls in play.

He came into this year with his service time clock at two years and 91 days. He will collect service time while on the IL and will therefore get to 3.091 by the coming offseason. That will qualify him for arbitration for the first time. Due to the surgery, he won’t be able to raise his salary very much but he’ll be a non-tender candidate regardless. If the Yanks were to tender him a contract, he’d have to take up a 40-man spot through the winter since there’s no IL between the end of the World Series and the opening of spring training.

Photo courtesy of Rafael Suanes, Imagn Images

Yankees Designate Pablo Reyes For Assignment

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The Yankees announced that infielder/outfielder Pablo Reyes has been designated for assignment. That opens an active roster spot for designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton to be reinstated from the 60-day injured list, a move that was reported earlier today. The club’s 40-man roster count stays at 39.

Reyes, 31, signed a minor league deal with the Yanks in the offseason and made the Opening Day roster. He has since served in a reserve role, often as a late-game replacement. He has appeared in 25 games with 34 plate appearances, hitting just .194/.242/.226 in those.

That’s not a great performance but it’s a small sample and it’s tough to maintain quality results with such sporadic action. Him getting the DFA treatment today is more about a fairly crowded Yankee roster. Stanton taking a place in the lineup means that one of Ben Rice or Paul Goldschmidt will be on the bench most days. One of the club’s four outfielders will take up a spot as well. Backup catcher J.C. Escarra will also be on the pine most days.

That left Reyes and fellow infielder Oswald Peraza for the bench spot. Both are out of options and performing poorly at the plate this year but Peraza is several years younger and not too far removed from being a top 100 prospect, so it makes sense to hang onto him in the hopes that there’s still some future value to be extracted there.

Add it all up and it equals Reyes heading into DFA limbo. That can last as long as a week but the waiver process takes 48 hours, so the club could take up to five days to explore trades. Reyes passed through waivers in September and then settled for a minor league deal in the offseason. He hasn’t done much to raise his stock since then, so it’s possible he clears waivers yet again. If he does so, he’ll have the right to elect free agency as a player with a previous career outright.

He now has 606 career plate appearances in the majors with a .245/.305/.342 line and 75 wRC+. He’s capable of bouncing all around the diamond, with experience at every position except catcher. That includes five innings of mop-up work on the mound.

Photo courtesy of Vincent Carchietta, Imagn Images

Yankees To Reinstate Giancarlo Stanton

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Designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton will be back in the lineup tonight, reports Andy Martino of SNY. Stanton is on the 60-day injured list, meaning he will need to retake a spot on the 40-man roster to be activated. The Yankees already have a vacancy there, so they will only need to make a corresponding active roster move in order to make this official.

Stanton, 35, will be making his season debut once tonight’s game begins. Way back in February, he reported to camp with soreness in both elbows and he has spent the past few months trying to get healthy. In March, he told Bryan Hoch of MLB.com that he had torn tendons in both elbows. He landed on the 10-day IL to start the season and the club listed his injury as elbow epicondylitis, more commonly known as “tennis elbow”. He was transferred to the 60-day IL at the start of May.

He has finally been able to ramp up in the past month or so, starting with some work with the high-velocity pitching machine and some live batting practice. He officially began a rehab assignment last week, going 3-11 plus a walk in three Double-A contests.

It seems fair to wonder what sort of production Stanton can provide at this point in his career. Though he has a lengthy track record of crushing the ball with ferocity, he’s now 35 years old and injuries have become more frequent. Though he’s largely been limited to the designated hitter slot, he still hasn’t appeared in 140 games in a season since 2018. He hasn’t hit the 115-game mark since 2021. Over the 2022-2024 seasons, he struck out in 30.5% of his plate appearances while slashing .212/.291/.454 for a 106 wRC+.

He’s now coming off yet another lengthy injury absence and it’s no guarantee that his bat will be an upgrade over what the Yankees have already had in there. Ben Rice has been getting most of the DH time this year and has a .227/.311/.460 line and 117 wRC+ so far this year. Knocking him out of that spot will have domino effects.

Moving Rice to first base isn’t really an option because Paul Goldschmidt is there and is hitting .311/.371/.455 for a 133 wRC+. Chris Kirschner of The Athletic points out that a Rice/Goldschmidt platoon would make on-paper sense but that manager Aaron Boone has ruled out such a tidy arrangement, perhaps not surprising with Goldschmidt a respected veteran making $12.5MM.

The Yanks are open to Rice getting some time behind the plate but Austin Wells is hitting .224/.288/.464 for a 107 wRC+ with solid defensive grades. He has also helped the pitching staff put up good numbers all year along despite the injuries to Gerrit Cole, Luis Gil and others. Even backup catcher J.C. Escarra has a .230/.333/.361 line and 100 wRC+ with good defense to boot.

Stanton does have some outfield work in his past but didn’t play there at all last year. Given his elbow injuries, he’s probably not going to be sent out to the grass. Even if the Yanks were willing to do that, they have been getting strong results from their outfield group of Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger, Trent Grisham and Jasson Domínguez.

It’s technically a good problem to have but it will be tricky for Boone to get the right balance of finding playing time for everyone so they all can stay crisp while simultaneously trying to optimize the lineup for success on a given day, though the logjam probably won’t last long since injuries are fairly inevitable.

Photo courtesy of Vincent Carchietta, Imagn Images

Diamondbacks Sign Anthony DeSclafani To Major League Contract

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TODAY: The D’Backs announced that DeSclafani signed a big league deal, and he has been added to the active roster.  To create roster space, right-hander Bryce Jarvis was optioned to Triple-A and Justin Martinez (who will miss the rest of the season due to UCL surgery) was shifted from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL.

JUNE 12: Right-hander Anthony DeSclafani has opted out of his minor league deal with the Yankees and is joining the Diamondbacks, reports Joel Sherman of The New York Post. It’s unclear if he’ll be signing a major or minor league deal with Arizona.

DeSclafani, 35, signed a minor league deal with the Yankees about a month ago. He has since made five starts at the Triple-A level, allowing 4.50 earned runs per nine in his 20 innings. He struck out 22.2% of batters faced while giving out walks at a 10% clip and getting grounders on 42.4% of balls in play. All those rates are fairly close to typical big league averages.

It’s a small sample of work but DeSclafani has a lengthy major league track record. The larger question in recent years has been health, or the lack thereof. From 2015 to 2021, he posted a 3.97 ERA over 791 major league innings. That was enough to get him a three-year, $36MM deal from the Giants going into 2022.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to provide much return on that investment. Right ankle inflammation hobbled him throughout 2022, limiting him to five starts with a 6.63 ERA. In 2023, he logged 99 2/3 innings with a 4.88 ERA but didn’t pitch after July due to a right elbow flexor strain. He was traded to the Mariners and then the Twins ahead of the 2024 season but required season-ending flexor tendon surgery in March.

DeSclafani is now almost two years removed from his most recent major league game but appears to be healthy now. He has averaged 92.5 miles per hour on his fastball so far this year. That’s a bit down from a few years ago, as he averaged between 93 and 95 mph during his best years, but he might still be ramping up after a lengthy layoff.

Unsurprisingly, the Yankees didn’t have a fit for him at the big league level. Despite several injuries, their rotation is in decent shape. They have Max Fried, Carlos Rodón, Clarke Schmidt, Will Warren and Ryan Yarbrough. They could get Marcus Stroman and JT Brubaker back soon, as both are on rehab assignments. Luis Gil is tossing bullpens and could be on his own rehab assignment in the coming weeks.

The Diamondbacks have a shakier rotation. They recently lost Corbin Burnes to Tommy John surgery. Jordan Montgomery has been out all year due to that same procedure. That leaves them with Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly, Brandon Pfaadt, Eduardo Rodríguez and Ryne Nelson. Kelly has been good but he’s the exception. Each of Gallen, Pfaadt and Rodríguez has an ERA north of 5.00. Rodríguez also just returned from an IL stint for shoulder inflammation. Nelson’s ERA is at 4.60 but he’s largely been in a long relief role this year. He just returned to the rotation in the wake of the Burnes injury but allowed seven runs in three innings against the Reds on Saturday. Potential replacements like Cristian Mena and Blake Walston are also on the shelf.

In short, DeSclafani has a far better chance to returning to the big leagues with the Snakes than with the Yanks, so this is a sensible move for him. If he is jumping right into the big leagues, the Diamondbacks would need to make corresponding moves to get him onto the active and 40-man rosters. If it’s a minor league deal, he’ll presumably report to Triple-A Reno to continue ramping up there.

Photo courtesy of D. Ross Cameron, Imagn Images.

Yankees’ Jake Cousins Weighing Elbow Surgery

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June 14: Boone said Saturday that while no decision has been finalized, Cousins appears to be trending towards Tommy John surgery (via Bryan Hoch of MLB.com).

June 12: Yankees reliever Jake Cousins has yet to pitch in the majors this season due to a flexor strain. He’d recently set out on a minor league rehab assignment in hopes of a return in the near future but was pulled from his most recent appearance in High-A with a setback. It’s the second setback in his rehab — he also dealt with a pectoral issue last month — and manager Aaron Boone revealed yesterday that Cousins is now dealing with what “seems to be a UCL injury” (link via Jackson Stone of MLB.com).

The Yankees and Cousins are still in the process of gathering opinions, but it’s an unwelcome development. At the time of the 30-year-old right-hander’s initial forearm/flexor injury in early spring training, imaging showed that Cousins’ ligament was intact (as noted by the New York Post’s Greg Joyce back in February). The pitcher himself told the Yankees beat back then that doctors had said his ulnar collateral ligament “looked great” in the MRIs he’d undergone.

Cousins was quietly excellent for New York in 2024 after coming over from the White Sox in a spring trade that sent cash to Chicago. He wound up pitching 37 games for the Yanks and logged a 2.37 ERA with a huge 34.2% strikeout rate but an unsightly 12.9% walk rate across 38 innings. Cousins had previously seen time in parts of three big league seasons with Milwaukee but bounced from the Brewers to the Astros via waivers before becoming a minor league free agent, signing a minor league deal with the South Siders, and finally making his way back to the majors in the Bronx.

When healthy, Cousins has regularly looked the part of a useful bullpen arm — he just hasn’t been healthy all that often in recent years. Dating back to the 2021 season, the former Nationals draftee has missed time with a biceps strain, elbow effusion/bursitis, shoulder inflammation and a pectoral strain, among other maladies. He’s pitched to a 2.78 ERA in 90 2/3 innings and fanned just shy of one-third of the batters he’s faced since making his MLB debut as a Brewer back in 2021. However, he’s pitched only 169 2/3 innings — majors and minor leagues combined — over the past four-plus seasons because of frequent trips to the injured list.

Most of Cousins’ injuries have occurred while on the major league roster, so despite his limited innings tally in the big leagues, he’ll cross three years of major league service in 2025. That’ll qualify him for arbitration in the coming offseason, although if he’s unable to get on a big league mound this year, his price tag would still be close to the minimum. For now, the hope will obviously be that Cousins can avoid surgery, as a Tommy John procedure or internal brace operation could cost him a year or more. Presumably, the Yankees will have more information on the extent of Cousins’ injury and a treatment plan in the coming days, but it seems unlikely he’ll be able to return to a major league mound anytime soon.

Yankees Release Brandon Leibrandt To Sign In CPBL

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The Yankees announced that they have released left-hander Brandon Leibrandt to sign with the CTBC Brothers of Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League. That move was previously reported by CPBL Stats.

Leibrandt, 32, signed a minor league deal with the Yankees in the offseason. He logged 41 Triple-A innings over nine starts and one long relief outing, allowing 2.85 earned runs per nine. He probably got a bit of help from his .245 batting average on balls in play and 87.8% strand rate, but his 22.7% strikeout rate and 8.6% walk rate were both solid figures while his 50.5% ground ball rate was quite strong.

Despite that cromulent performance, his path to big league playing time in the Bronx was steep. Despite several injuries, the Yankee rotation is in decent shape. They have Max Fried, Carlos Rodón, Clarke Schmidt, Will Warren and Ryan Yarbrough. They could get Marcus Stroman and JT Brubaker back soon, as both are on rehab assignments. Luis Gil is tossing bullpens and could be on his own rehab assignment in the coming weeks.

Leibrandt was therefore likely to be stuck in the minors but will head overseas instead. Presumably, he’ll be getting a bit of a pay bump while being able to explore the other side of the globe. It’s also possible that he could be exposed to scouts from other Asian leagues and earn himself future opportunities if he performs well. His major league track record currently consists of 15 1/3 innings with a 5.28 ERA.

Photo courtesy of Nathan Ray Seebeck, Imagn Images

Yankees Considering Starts For Ben Rice At Catcher

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The Yankees are set to welcome Giancarlo Stanton back from the injured list in the relatively near future. Bringing the slugger back into the fold can only be a good thing for the offense overall, but it does create one major issue for the team: finding playing time for breakout DH Ben Rice. With Stanton set to reclaim DH on a regular basis and Paul Goldschmidt entrenched at first base for the time being, it’s going to be difficult for Rice to get the same level of playing time he has to this point in the season.

Losing him as a regular in the lineup would be a shame, however, as the 26-year-old has slashed an excellent .240/.326/.495 with a wRC+ of 130 across 57 games this year. That’s already not been quite an everyday role due to the outfield logjam created by the emergence of Trent Grisham in an outfield that was already committed to Jasson Dominguez and Cody Bellinger as regulars alongside Aaron Judge, but Rice has still been a fixture of the club’s lineup this year.

There have been some indications that Stanton may not start every single day upon his return in order to keep him healthier throughout the remainder of the year and allow Rice to get keep getting starts, but Jack Curry of the YES Network relays that Aaron Boone told reporters today that Rice could get some starts behind the plate when Stanton returns. It comes as a bit of a surprise since Rice hasn’t made a start at catcher this season, but it’s not entirely out of left field. Rice has continued to do pregame work as a catcher this season even as he’s settled into a DH and backup first base role, and of course spent the majority of his time in the minor leagues as a catcher.

Austin Wells has held his own behind the plate this year with a .227/.294/.476 (111 wRC+) slash line in 56 games, but Rice undeniably has a bigger bat. Getting the slugger even one start a week behind the plate would significantly improve his path towards significant playing time in the lineup, as it would allow Goldschmidt and Stanton to both start the majority of games at first base and DH respectively while still allowing Rice to remain at least a half-time player. Of course, it’s possible a catcher experiment could be short-lived for Rice if he proves to be a liability defensively behind the plate, but it’s still an exciting opportunity for the youngster to prove himself capable at his natural position and earn more playing time down the stretch this year.

Whether Rice will continue to get a more extended look as a semi-regular option behind the plate remains to be seen. It seems likely that J.C. Escarra will continue to remain on the roster as a more traditional backup for Wells given the fact that Rice figures to continue being in the DH mix on a regular basis. It’s not impossible to imagine that changing if Rice takes to the position especially well, but it’s also possible that an injury to Stanton or Goldschmidt at some point could create an opening for Rice elsewhere that pushes him off the position. When talented young players are blocked within their current organization, that often leads to trade speculation as the deadline approaches. It seems unlikely that the Yankees would consider going down that path with Rice, however, given that Goldschmidt is set to reach free agency after this season and Rice looks to be a fairly natural choice to take the reins at first base in 2026.

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