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Archives for July 2018

Red Sox Acquire Nathan Eovaldi

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The Red Sox have officially struck a deal to land righty Nathan Eovaldi from the Rays, as Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic first reported (via Twitter). Young lefty Jalen Beeks will go to Tampa Bay in return, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (Twitter link).

This swap is the second in the last two days that sends rental pitchers between AL East rivals. Yesterday, of course, the Yankees got lefty reliever Zach Britton from the Orioles. The Yanks will temporarily dodge Eovaldi, who had been scheduled to start against them today, but will surely see him down the stretch.

For Boston, the move will add an intriguing arm to their roster. Eovaldi has worked as a starter almost exclusively in his career, and may well continue to do so over the final two months of the season as he helps to shore up a Red Sox rotation that is showing a few cracks. But his role in the postseason could end up being an interesting one. The Sox have an unusual number of southpaws among their rotation candidates, making Eovaldi an interesting pitcher to pair up with one or more lefties.

Eovaldi is a pure rental, and a cheap one at that. He’s earning just $2MM this year, with some affordable incentive pay also included. Though it took him quite a while to make it all the way back from Tommy John surgery, Eovaldi has returned with vigor thus far in 2018.

Over 57 frames in ten starts this year Eovaldi has pumped his customary 97+ mph heat while working to a solid 4.26 ERA. But that only tells part of the story. He’s sporting a career-best 20.1% K%-BB% while generating more swings and misses (11.0%) than ever before, though he has also been touched for 11 long balls. Eovaldi merited rather lofty placement on MLBTR’s latest ranking of the top trade deadline candidates and has certainly increased his stock heading into free agency.

It seems likely the Rays will have designs on using Beeks in a flexible manner, too, but on a more regular basis. The 25-year-old has been roughed up in two MLB outings this year, but has also turned in increasingly interesting results in the upper minors in recent seasons.

Over 16 Triple-A starts in 2018, Beeks carries a 2.89 ERA with 12.1 K/9 and 2.6 BB/9 over 87 1/3 innings. That strong showing led Baseball America to rank Beeks the Sox’ sixth-best prospect in its most recent look at a thin Boston farm. While he’s considered likely to be a back-end rotation piece in the majors, he possesses an interesting four-pitch mix and seems a good fit for the Rays’ counter-culture approach to building a pitching staff.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Mets Announce That Yoenis Cespedes Will Undergo Season-Ending Surgery

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The Mets have announced that star outfielder Yoenis Cespedes will undergo season-ending surgery. He had already been placed on the disabled list yesterday due to calcification in both heels.

It is expected that Cespedes will require at least eight to ten months of rehabilitation before he’ll be able to return, assistant GM John Ricco said at today’s press conference (via Mike Puma of the New York Post, on Twitter). That period could end up being extended, depending upon how the veteran responds to treatment.

Needless to say, this is not the news the Mets hoped for in the midst of an already disastrous season. The 32-year-old Cespedes is owed $58.5MM over the next two campaigns. There is a silver lining here, in that Ricco says the club will have an opportunity to attempt to recover some of the funds through an insurance policy (also via a Puma tweet).

Given the recovery timeline presented, and building in a period to get up to baseball speed, Cespedes will likely not be able to return until the middle of the 2019 season at the earliest. While it’s possible the Mets will end up receiving a significant contribution from him next year, the organization will likely enter the offseason operating under the assumption that they need to make alternative plans.

While the news is unfortunate, it also presents questions for all involved. Cespedes had been out for two months with a hip injury — his most recent in a string of maladies involving lower-body muscles. It was not until he had worked back to the majors, though, that the heel issue was identified as an underlying cause. (And, even then, it seemed that the team was not fully aware of the new diagnosis.) The timing of all these developments is certainly suboptimal given that the procedure requires such a lengthy rehab stint.

The organization, which has certainly dealt with its share of controversy over heath situations in the recent past, issued the following explanation in its press release:

“The pain, as a result of the calcifications, has caused him to alter his gait in an attempt to manage the discomfort, which has resulted in stress and injury to other parts of his legs. The consensus among the team doctors and specialists is that all conservative treatment options to manage the pain have been exhausted and that surgery is now recommended.”

Sorting out the medical situation remains a long-term priority, though perhaps that will wait until the team makes some decisions on baseball operations leadership over the offseason.

In the near-term, it’s still not entirely clear what direction the Mets will take at the trade deadline. Ricco says the news on Cespedes won’t really change the outlook, but it certainly could weigh in the balance if the organization decides to consider moving some of its top pitching assets next winter.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

MLB Daily Roster Roundup: Cespedes, Guerra, Pomeranz, Sanchez

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ROSTER MOVES BY TEAM
(July 24th)

NATIONAL LEAGUE

  • ST. LOUIS CARDINALS | Depth Chart
    • Promoted: SP Austin Gomber
      • Gomber made his 1st MLB start on Tuesday.
    • Optioned: SP Daniel Poncedeleon
      • Poncedeleon pitched 7 no-hit innings in his MLB debut on Monday (3 K, 3 BB).

—

AMERICAN LEAGUE

—

FUTURE EXPECTED MOVES

Yankees Acquire Zach Britton

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10:45pm: The Orioles and Yankees have formally announced the trade. Baltimore assigned Tate to Double-A Bowie. Rogers and Carroll have been assigned to Triple-A Norfolk.

8:01pm: The Zach Britton bidding war looks to have come to an end, as the Yankees have reportedly reached an agreement to acquire the left-hander from the Orioles in exchange for minor league pitchers Dillon Tate, Cody Carroll and Josh Rogers. The reported agreement has yet to be announced by either club and is said to still be pending medical reviews — a major final hurdle to clear, especially when considering Baltimore’s previous history of nixing or delaying deals over medical concerns.

Zach Britton | Brace Hemmelgarn/Minnesota Twins/Getty Images

If the trade is ultimately finalized and announced, the addition of Britton would boost an already overpowering Yankees relief corps that features the likes of Aroldis Chapman, David Robertson, Dellin Betances, Chad Green and Jonathan Holder. Each of those relievers has thrown at least 40 innings in 2018, and each has an ERA of 3.05 or better. All but Holder (7.9 K/9) have averaged 10.9 strikeouts per nine innings or better.

While he doesn’t quite look to be back in peak form after this offseason’s surgery on his Achilles tendon, Britton has made significant strides over his past eight outings in terms of both velocity and ground-ball rate. His control isn’t quite back up to its peak levels, but Britton is missing bats and racking up ground-balls at a 72.2 percent clip over eight straight scoreless appearances.

If healthy, Britton will give the Yankees a potentially dominant second lefty to pair with Chapman and the Yankees’ slew of top-notch right-handed arms. That’s been a missing piece for New York all season, as Chasen Shreve has been solid at times but largely inconsistent.

A free agent at season’s end, Britton is earning $12MM this season and is still owed about $4.38MM of that sum. That money would count against the Yankees’ luxury tax ledger, though the they’re currently a bit more than $15MM south of the $197MM barrier, so Britton won’t push them over the edge. His addition will inch them closer to that mark, which will need to be a consideration in further trades, but for the time being, they’re still well clear of penalization.

Because Britton will be changing hands in a midseason deal, he won’t be eligible to receive a qualifying offer at season’s end, meaning the Yankees won’t be able to recoup any draft-pick compensation if he departs and signs elsewhere as a free agent.

That’s barely a consideration for the Yankees, though, as they find themselves six games back from the Red Sox in the American League East. While the Yankees are hardly out of contention for a division title, it looks considerably likelier right now that they’ll find themselves in an American League Wild Card showdown against the Mariners or the Athletics. Adding another potential shutdown reliever to an already formidable bullpen will aid rookie manager Aaron Boone’s efforts to shorten the contest and provide the Yankees insurance in the event of an unexpectedly short start, such as the one they received from Luis Severino in last year’s Wild Card game against the Twins.

Furthermore, it’s become increasingly common for clubs to stack their bullpens with potent relievers as a means of shutting down opposing lineups in postseason series. The Astros, Cubs, Royals, Indians and Dodgers are among the teams that have enjoyed deep playoff runs in recent seasons with stacked relief units that can be relied upon more heavily in the postseason than during the regular season thanks to the built-in off days during the playoff schedule. Britton only furthers the Yankees’ ability to employ that tactic, should they ultimately return to the ALDS for a second consecutive season.

Turning to the Orioles, they’ll bid adieu to fan favorite in Britton — a longtime top prospect who floundered as a starter but emerged as one of the best (if not the best) reliever in baseball at his peak with the club. Britton anchored the Orioles’ bullpen in both 2014 and 2016, helping the team to the postseason in each of those two campaigns — even if he’ll be more remembered for manager Buck Showalter’s stunning decision not to use him in the 2016 Wild Card tilt against the Blue Jays. He’s the second star the O’s have shipped out in recent days, joining Manny Machado as Baltimore looks to restock a decrepit farm system that has long ranked among the worst in the game.

The top piece joining Baltimore’s minor league ranks is the 24-year-old Tate — the fourth overall pick in the 2015 draft. While Tate was originally selected by the Rangers, they subsequently traded him to New York a year later as the main piece in the Carlos Beltran swap. Tate was struggling at the time of that deal and had seen his prospect star dim a bit, but he’s rebuilt much of his stock with the Yankees and is currently in the midst of a quality season for the Yankees’ affiliate in Trenton. Through 82 2/3 innings, he’s worked to a 3.38 ERA with 8.2 K/9, 2.7 BB/9, 0.76 HR/9 and a 48.1 percent ground-ball rate.

Baseball America recently ranked Tate as the Yankees’ sixth-best prospect on its updated Top 10 rankings for the organization, praising his “high-end stuff” and crediting him with the potential for three plus pitches (fastball, slider changeup). He still needs to be more consistent with his secondary offerings, per BA’s report, but Tate will give the Orioles a much-needed potential mid-rotation starter on which they can dream.

Carroll, 25, ranks 15th among Yankees farmhands per Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com, though they’ve yet to publish their midseason update of the team’s rankings. That said, Carroll hasn’t done anything to lower his status in 2018. To the contrary, he’s been nothing short of brilliant out of the Yankees’ bullpen in Triple-A. Over the life of 41 2/3 innings, Carroll has logged a superlative 2.38 ERA with 11.9 K/9, 3.9 BB/9 and a 32.6 percent grounder rate. He’s been fortunate in that he’s yet to surrender a home run this season, so his ERA should probably be taken with a grain of salt, but Callis and Mayo slapped a 75-grade on his heater (on the 20-80 scale) in their free scouting report, and Carroll’s slider also draws plus ratings.

The 24-year-old Rogers, meanwhile, doesn’t rank among the Yankees’ top tier of prospects, but he’s worked to a 3.95 ERA with 6.8 K/9, 2.4 BB/9, 1.07 HR/9 and a 40.1 percent ground-ball rate in 109 innings (19 starts) for the team’s top affiliate in Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre so far in 2018. Given his age and relative success in the upper minors, it’s conceivable that he could help the Orioles as soon as the second half of the 2018 season. If not, it’s likely he’ll be viewed as an option to join the staff in 2019.

As for the Yankees, they’re still quite likely to be in the market for a starting pitcher. The fact that Tate is the headliner of the return for Britton subtracts one of their better chips, but the Yankees nonetheless possess a deep farm system that should allow them to pursue virtually any starter on the market — be it a major upgrade with multiple years of control remaining or a short-term rental with a decidedly lower cost of acquisition. The Britton trade, then, will likely be the first of many for the Yankees in the coming week (to say nothing of August) as they gear up for yet another postseason appearance.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic first reported (via Twitter) that the Yankees had emerged as the front-runner for Britton and that Tate had been scratched from his start. SNY’s Andy Martino tweeted that the two sides had reached the medical review stage of talks. Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com tweeted that the Yankees would send three prospects back to the Orioles. Fancred’s Jon Heyman reported that the two sides had agreed on all of the players to be involved, pending medicals (Twitter links). Joel Sherman of the New York Post reported that Rogers and Carroll were in the deal (Twitter links).

Blue Jays Rumors: Happ, Clippard, Axford, Estrada, Solarte, Stroman

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While one AL East seller has begun to unload some of its most marketable inventory, the Blue Jays have yet to come to an agreement on any trades. However, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports (via Twitter) that the Jays are ramping up their efforts to trade impending free agents J.A. Happ, Tyler Clippard and John Axford, so as not to be left with too many pieces to move at the eleventh hour as the non-waiver deadline approaches.

Similarly, SNY’s Andy Martino tweets that the Jays have dropped their asking price on Happ recently. While the Toronto front office was at one point asking other clubs for players considered to be among those organizations’ top three or so prospects, they’re being a bit more “realistic” with the deadline approaching, Martino hears. Exactly what the lower asking price entails remains unclear, and it certainly doesn’t seem they’re intent on rushing a trade just yet. For instance, Fancred’s Jon Heyman tweets that the Yankees still believe the asking price on Happ to be too high.

Beyond the trio of Happ, Clippard and Axford, however, the Jays appear to have other pieces they’d either like to move or, at least, are willing to move. MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand writes that Toronto is also shopping both right-hander Marco Estrada and, a bit more surprisingly, infielder Yangervis Solarte. One exec from another club tells Feinsand that the Jays’ prices on their movable assets remains “extremely high,” however.

While much has been made of Happ’s availability, the other players listed in tonight’s reports haven’t been covered at such great length. Both Clippard and Axford are playing on supremely affordable $1.5MM base salaries after earning roster spots as minor league invitees to Spring Training. Both veteran relievers have improved their control (dramatically so, in Axford’s case) while largely maintaining their strikeout rates. Clippard’s bottom-line ERA (3.61) tops that of Axford (4.24), but fielding-independent metrics favor Axford fairly substantially. Either reliever, though, could help to bolster a contending club’s middle-relief contingent.

As for Estrada, he hasn’t pitched since July 3, owing to a left glute strain. He’d been out on a rehab assignment, but Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith tweets that he was forced to exit today’s start due to a blister on his middle finger. That significantly clouds the chances of Estrada returning before the July 31 deadline, but considering the fact that he’ll still be owed $4.26MM of this year’s $13MM salary come Aug. 1, he could certainly clear waivers and be marketed in August. Estrada hasn’t been at his best this season anyhow, though, struggling to a 4.72 ERA with 7.0 K/9 against 2.5 BB/9 with 1.51 HR/9 through 89 2/3 innings of work.

The inclusion of Solarte on Feinsand’s list is a bit more surprising, given that the Jays can control him through the 2020 season at affordable rates, should they choose. The 31-year-old Solarte hasn’t performed that well in 2018, hitting just .240/.294/.424 in 418 plate appearances. But, Solarte’s walk and strikeout rates remain solid, and he’s making hard contact at the same clip he did in 2017. Despite maintaining a knack for squaring up the ball, Solarte’s .244 BABIP sits well south of his career mark of .272. Given his ability to handle second base or third base (plus some shortstop in a pinch), plus a pair of club options for the 2019 ($5.5MM) and 2020 ($8MM) seasons, Solarte should draw fairly widespread interest.

One player who the Jays don’t appear keen on dealing, however, is righty Marcus Stroman. Heyman tweets that several teams have checked in on Stroman, but there’s a “strong belief” throughout the industry that Toronto will hang onto him. Stroman has another two seasons of club control remaining beyond the 2018 season, and the Blue Jays would be selling low on him in some regards.

While clubs are increasingly willing to look past ugly ERA marks in favor of other more telling metrics, it still seems likely that Stroman’s 5.42 ERA and certainly his increased walk rate would weigh down his trade value. Stroman, though, has maintained similar strikeout, swinging-strike, home-run and ground-ball rates in 2018; his unsightly ERA is tied somewhat to his worsened control but also to a fluky low 61.6 percent strand rate. Certainly, other clubs see plenty to like when looking at Stroman in spite of sub-par traditional stats.

None of that even touches on perhaps the team’s most enigmatic trade piece — third baseman Josh Donaldson. At this point, it’s not clear that Donaldson will return before the non-waiver deadline. The remainder of his $23MM salary will assuredly clear waivers next month, meaning he’ll have a bit of time to prove he can return to form and showcase himself for contending clubs before the Aug. 31 deadline for postseason eligibility. With Donaldson and Estrada both likely to clear waivers, the Jays could well remain active on the trade front even if they move their top rental commodities in the next week.

Twins Activate Ervin Santana, Designate Taylor Motter For Assignment

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The Twins announced after tonight’s game that they’ve designated infielder/outfielder Taylor Motter for assignment in order to open a spot on the roster for right-hander Ervin Santana, who has been activated from the 60-day disabled list.

It’ll be the season debut for Santana, who underwent surgery on his the middle finger on his right hand back in February. Originally expected to miss around 12 weeks, Santana wound up missing the entire first half of the season (and then some) as his rehab proved to be considerably slower than expected. He’ll now join a Twins club that has significantly underperformed in 2018 and will almost certainly be acting as a seller leading up to the non-waiver trade deadline.

Santana himself, in fact, could emerge as a trade option for the Twins, though he’ll likely only have enough time to make a pair of starts (at best) before next Tuesday’s deadline. But, with $4.94MM of his $13.5MM salary still yet to be paid out, Santana may very well clear waivers in early August and allow the Twins to market him there. There’s a chance that Santana could be controlled into the 2019 season, be it by the Twins or another club, but he’d need to pitch quite well in the season’s final couple of months in order to convince a club to exercise his $14MM option for the 2019 season.

The 35-year-old Santana’s absence has played no small role in Minnesota’s 2018 flop, as he’d been the staff’s most consistent starter over the past two seasons. Dating back to 2016, Santana logged 392 2/3 innings of 3.32 ERA ball, averaging 7.2 K/9, 2.6 BB/9 and 1.1 HR/9 with a roughly 42 percent ground-ball rate along the way. The Twins had hoped he’d pair with Jose Berrios to lead an improved rotation mix and make a run at the AL Central, but instead Minnesota has received no value any of Santana, Byron Buxton or Miguel Sano over the course of the season. As a result, players like Santana, Brian Dozier, Eduardo Escobar, Zach Duke, Fernando Rodney and others will find themselves on the trade block in the coming days.

As for Motter, he was claimed off waivers after the Mariners designated him for assignment earlier this summer. The versatile 28-year-old managed just one hit in 23 plate appearances, though, missing time with a concussion along the way. The Twins will have a week to trade Motter or run him through outright waivers. He’s a career .190/.263/.313 hitter in the Majors (407 plate appearances), but he’s had considerably more success at the Triple-A level.

Mets Place Yoenis Cespedes On Disabled List

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The Mets have placed Yoenis Cespedes back on the disabled list due to calcification in both of his heels, the team told announced via press release. While the Mets and Cespedes are waiting for a second opinion on the injury, Mike Puma of the New York Post reports that Cespedes was believed to be leaning toward undergoing season-ending surgery as of this morning (Twitter links). David Lennon of Newsday tweets that Cespedes can “barely run without his heels feeling like they’re on fire.”

Cespedes, 32, has appeared in 38 games for the Mets this season and batted .262/.325/.496 with nine home runs and six doubles. He landed on the disabled list in mid-May with what was, at the time, termed a “mild” strain of his right hip flexor but ultimately wound up missing more than two months with the injury. Cespedes returned last ween and homered in a two-hit showing, but he’s been out of the lineup since.

Over the weekend, Cespedes’ heels became yet another circus-like storyline for the Mets, as the outfielder told reporters that he could require surgery to repair the issue — only for manager Mickey Callaway to eventually express concern to the media and say that he was unsure of what Cespedes had said. Callaway later backtracked (link via the Post’s Dan Martin) and said that he “misspoke” and handled the situation poorly. Assistant GM John Ricco, part of the Mets’ acting-GM triumvirate, acknowledged over the weekend that Friday was the first the team had heard he was considering surgery (Twitter link via James Wagner of the New York Times).

Cespedes would be the second Mets outfielder to require season-ending surgery, joining Juan Lagares (toe) in that regard. With him on the shelf, be it for a shorter term or for the remainder of the season, the Mets will continue to utilize Brandon Nimmo and Michael Conforto in the outfield. Matt den Dekker is currently getting some time in the outfield as well, though Jay Bruce figures to eventually return from hip discomfort to claim some playing time.

Kendall Graveman To Undergo Tommy John Surgery

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Athletics right-hander Kendall Graveman will undergo Tommy John surgery to repair ligament damage in his right elbow, reports Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. Graveman tells Slusser that he’s been rehabbing in the minors for six weeks after an MRI revealed some damage, but he hasn’t healed sufficiently enough to avoid surgical repair. He’ll be out for the remainder of the 2018 season and will likely miss the majority of (or possibly all of) the 2019 campaign as well.

Graveman, 27, emerged as a solid mid-rotation option for the A’s from 2015-17 after coming over as part of the widely panned Josh Donaldson blockbuster with the Blue Jays. While he was hardly a household name outside of Oakland, Graveman worked to a 4.11 ERA with 5.6 K/9, 2.6 BB/9, 1.1 HR/9 and well above-average ground-ball tendencies through 407 innings across that three-year span. That proved enough to land him an Opening Day start in 2018, but the season wound up being a forgettable one for the righty.

Graveman was tagged for five runs in five innings to kick off the Athletics’ season, and he ultimately made only six starts in the Majors (allowing three or more runs in each) before being surprisingly optioned to Triple-A Nashville. He’d return for one start in mid-May before being sent back to Nashville, and he’s been on the minor league disabled list since early June.

Because Graveman’s injury appears to have occurred in the minors, he’ll spend the remainder of the season on the minor league disabled list (barring an additional move to the MLB 60-day DL). As such, he’s not likely to accrue the Major League service time needed to reach four full years of service. Put another way, the circumstances of his season-ending injury seem likely to delay his path to free agency by a year. Graveman will finish out the season with between three and four years of service, meaning he’ll arbitration-eligible this offseason and once again in each of the two subsequent offseasons. While he’d previously been on track to hit the open market after the 2020 season, it now seems he’s lined up to reach free agency after the 2021 season.

Of course, that assumes that the A’s retain Graveman. He’s earning $2.375MM this season after avoiding arbitration for the first time last winter, and he’d likely be in line for the same salary — or at best, a very minimal raise — in 2019. There’s certainly reason to think the A’s would keep him around anyhow, as they’d effectively be paying him in 2019 for the right to control him cheaply in 2020-21, but the injury at the very least creates some uncertainty surrounding his future with the organization.

Tom Koehler Undergoes Season-Ending Shoulder Surgery

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The Dodgers announced to reporters this afternoon that right-hander Tom Koehler has undergone season-ending shoulder surgery (Twitter link via SportsNet L.A.’s Alanna Rizzo).

Los Angeles signed Koehler, a longtime starter for the Marlins, to a one-year, $2MM deal this winter in the hopes of converting him into a bullpen piece. The 32-year-old had made just one relief appearance from 2014-17 when the Blue Jays picked him up and shifted him to the ’pen last season. That experiment apparently piqued the interest of the Dodgers, who’d hoped Koehler could be a low-cost replacement for Brandon Morrow, who departed via free agency over the winter.

That, of course, has not been how things have panned out. Koehler was diagnosed with an anterior capsule strain early in Spring Training and had a setback in his recovery in June. The hope at the time of that setback was that he’d be able to join the Dodgers in August, but he’ll now miss the entire season and could quite likely see his Dodgers tenure end altogether without throwing so much as a single pitch in a game setting.

The Dodgers will have the option of retaining Koehler via arbitration, as he’ll finish out the season with five years, 152 days of Major League service time. Koehler wouldn’t earn a raise in arbitration after missing the entire season, but he’d likely command a salary identical to this season’s $2MM mark. Even the deep-pocketed Dodgers seem likely to non-tender him given that fact, though they could certainly bring him back to the organization on a minor league contract.

Trade Chatter: Archer, Rockies, O’s, Astros, Steckenrider, D-backs, Kela

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With the Padres’ lengthy rebuilding moving ever closer to its conclusion, the team has been inquiring about controllable MLB pieces to add to its rotation. They’ve already been tied to Noah Syndergaard on the rumor mill, and they reportedly asked the Yankees about Miguel Andujar during Brad Hand talks. Adding to that line of thinking, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic writes today (subscription required) that an executive that is with neither the Padres nor the Rays tells him that San Diego is pursuing a Chris Archer trade. Rosenthal is careful to stress that neither the Friars nor the Rays confirmed as much, though the two sides have had at least some level of discussions regarding Archer, he notes. As Rosenthal explores at length, however, there are myriad roadblocks to a deal.

Whether San Diego’s interest in Archer is serious or more along the lines of due diligence, it’s an interesting look at the calculus both the Padres and Rays need to consider when weighing future-oriented moves. And it’s certainly another notable data point suggesting that Padres GM A.J. Preller and his staff are beginning to look at improving the big league roster with pieces that could be controlled beyond the 2020 season.

Some more trade talk from around the league…

  • In addition to the Rockies’ previously reported interest in Zach Britton, Colorado has also asked the Orioles about right-handers Dylan Bundy and Kevin Gausman, Jon Morosi of MLB.com reports (via Twitter). There’s no momentum in talks regarding Bundy and Gausman, however, Morosi adds. To this point, it’s not at all clear whether the O’s would even consider moving Gausman (controlled through 2020) or Bundy (through 2021). There’s little reason for the Orioles not to seriously entertain offers, from my vantage point, as they’re not likely to contend in either 2019 or 2020 with the Yankees and Red Sox both poised for long-term success. Obviously, that’s not to say they should simply take the best offer presented before July 31, but the Orioles should be amenable to moving just about anyone on the roster for a strong enough return.
  • The Athletic’s Jayson Stark cites execs from teams that have spoken with the Astros in reporting (via Twitter) that Houston has been “adamant” about hanging onto its very top tier of prospects in trade talks (e.g. Forrest Whitley, Yordan Alvarez). The Astros’ farm system is plenty deep, of course, and it stands to reason that any of the rental targets they’re pursuing — they’ve been oft-linked to Zach Britton, for instance — would come with a lower price tag than that anyhow.
  • The Marlins’ ask on its controllable relievers appears to be quite high, with Morosi tweeting that Miami indicated to the Red Sox that Jay Groome or Michael Chavis alone would not be enough to land Drew Steckenrider. (Morosi doesn’t suggest that either was ever offered up by the Red Sox — only that the Marlins wouldn’t have considered a one-for-one swap in either case.) While Groome and Chavis are generally regarded as Boston’s top two prospects, Groome underwent Tommy John surgery earlier this summer. Chavis, meanwhile, missed the first 80 games of the season due to a PED suspension and has only logged 10 games since being activated.
  • Morosi also tweets that the Diamondbacks have shown interest in Rangers relievers Keone Kela and Jose Leclerc. There’s no indication that talks between the two sides are serious, but the Rangers are reportedly open to moving Kela, who is controlled through the 2020 season. The 25-year-old is currently sporting a 3.18 ERA with 10.9 K/9 against 3.2 BB/9 through 34 innings of work and has a 2.97 ERA with better than 11 K/9 dating back to 2017. Leclerc would be tougher to pry away, as he’s controlled for another four seasons beyond the current campaign and currently boasts a 2.06 ERA with a 51-to-18 K/BB ratio through 35 innings.

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