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Archives for April 2019

Jacob deGrom Headed For Elbow MRI, Injured List

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6:01pm: Mets GM Brodie Van Wagenen announced to reporters that deGrom is going on the injured list, retroactive to April 16th. (Via Joel Sherman of the New York Post; links to Twitter.) Van Wagenen says that deGrom has been disrupted by an illness, seemingly implying that is as much a factor here as the arm issue. The hurler is said to be dealing only with mild soreness that has already improved, with the imaging being classed a precautionary measure. The expectation at this point, per Van Wagenen, is that deGrom will be activated to start on April 26th.

4:20pm: Mets ace Jacob deGrom is headed to New York to undergo an MRI on his right elbow, manager Mickey Callaway told reporters including Tim Healey of Newsday (Twitter link). That’s less than welcome news for a team that is already dealing with some struggles in its vaunted rotation.

Given that deGrom has yet to undergo a full medical examination, there’s no reason to jump to any conclusions here. It’s plenty possible that there’s no real issue whatsoever. All we know at present is that the club felt it worthwhile to send him in for a checkup after his elbow was “barking” today after he played catch in advance of his scheduled start tomorrow.

deGrom last pitched on the 14th, throwing 114 pitches but lasting just five innings. He didn’t exhibit any velocity issues; to the contrary, he has dialed up the heat over the course of the season. Though his last two outings have not been his best, there hasn’t been any indication of a problem before today’s news.

The hope, clearly, is that the reigning National League Cy Young winner is just experiencing a minor issue. He’ll surely be handled with care regardless, as the Mets can ill afford to allow a small problem to become a larger one. deGrom, who inked a four-year extension just before the start of the season, has previously undergone Tommy John surgery but has been quite durable since.

Diamondbacks Acquire Blake Swihart

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The Diamondbacks have acquired catcher Blake Swihart from the Red Sox, per a club announcement. International pool money is also going to Arizona in the deal — $500K in spending capacity, GM Mike Hazen tells reporters including Zach Buchanan of The Athletic (Twitter links) — with outfield prospect Marcus Wilson going to Boston in return.

Swihart had been designated for assignment recently. He’s now heading to an interesting situation with the Snakes. Hazen is among several top D-Backs executives that came over from the Red Sox; needless to say, the team is amply familiar with Swihart.

The Diamondbacks are the one organization in baseball that has been most dedicated to carrying three catcher-capable players on its active roster. That’s particularly relevant for Swihart, given that his questionable abilities behind the plate have thus far limited his chances in the majors. But the plan doesn’t appear to be for the out-of-options Swihart to displace a current D-Backs receiver (Carson Kelly, John Ryan Murphy, Caleb Joseph). Rather, Hazen indicates that the club intends to utilize him in some kind of utility capacity.

It’ll be interesting to see whether the Arizona organization is better able to draw value out of Swihart than were the Sox. Prior attempts at moving him around the field didn’t work out. And his well-regarded bat hasn’t yet done much damage in the majors, though to be fair opportunities have come in fits and starts to this point. In 626 career plate appearances at the game’s highest level, Swihart carries a .255/.314/.365 slash with nine home runs, ten steals, and a combination of a 25.7% strikeout rate and 7.7% walk rate.

The Red Sox won’t come away with what they hoped for out of Swihart, who was once considered quite a high-end prospect. But they were able to add an interesting player in Wilson, who was taken 69th overall in the 2014 draft. He has some swing and miss in his game but also has drawn his share of walks and has produced solid numbers at times in the low minors. An intriguing athlete, Wilson is off to a nice start this year at Double-A and is seen as possessing a relatively lofty ceiling.

Brewers Option Corbin Burnes

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The Brewers have optioned struggling right-hander Corbin Burnes to Triple-A, as Toby Harrmann of Brewerfan.net first reported on Twitter. Also heading down is reliever Jake Petricka, with Alex Wilson and Donnie Hart added to the active roster to take the openings.

Burnes, 24, impressed in a relief role last year after earning a mid-season call-up. But the hope was (and remains) that he’d be a quality starter in the long run. The Brewers decided to entrust a rotation spot to him to open the current campaign. After 17 2/3 innings of 10.70 ERA pitching, though, it was clear a change was in order.

In some ways, Burnes’s first four starts in the majors showed promise. He maintained mid-nineties velocity and a 14.1% swinging-strike rate while racking up 12.2 K/9 against 4.1 BB/9. Trouble is, opponents did quite a lot of damage when they did make contact. Burnes was tagged for eleven home runs (that’s an eye-watering 5.6 per nine) and a 51.7% hard contact rate.

The Brewers will hope that Burnes can sort things out at Triple-A. In the meantime, there are rotation questions to be answered. Freddy Peralta has had his own struggles and also hit the injured list, leaving two spots unspoken for.

Chase Anderson and Aaron Wilkerson are already up in the bullpen and could step into the rotation, though both have plenty left to prove. Perhaps Adrian Houser could be tapped for his first MLB start after a few prior relief appearances; he has thrown well in three Triple-A starts to begin the year. It’s also conceivable the team could pursue a reunion with Gio Gonzalez, who’s said to be triggering an opt-out clause in his deal with the Yankees, though there’ll be other organizations in on Gonzalez and that would mean freeing a 40-man spot.

Looking at the longer-term implications, Burnes will now need to earn his way back to the majors in order to push forward his service clock. Perhaps he’ll have a chance to do so, with paths available both in the rotation and relief corps. He’s sitting on 108 days of service at this point. That means he can spend only 100 days on optional assignment before he’d miss a chance at topping a full year of service by the end of the current campaign.

Rays Select Contract Of Casey Sadler

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The Rays announced today that they have selected the contract of righty Casey Sadler. To create a roster opening, the team shifted rehabbing hurler Jose De Leon to the 60-day injured list.

The AL East-leading Tampa Bay organization created active roster space by optioning out righty Emilio Pagan. And with backstop Mike Zunino hitting the paternity list, the team also brought up catcher Nick Ciuffo.

Sadler, 28, has seen scattered action in parts of three seasons with the Pirates. He’ll be looking to build off of an interesting early showing at Triple-A this year with his new organization, which added him on a minors deal over the offseason. Sadler has racked up 13 strikeouts in his seven innings with the Rays’ top affiliate.

Whether there’s some new trick up his sleeve remains to be seen; Sadler has averaged just 6.3 K/9 in his 700+ minor-league frames. He has been a solid performer at Triple-A, turning in a 3.64 ERA over 314 innings in parts of six seasons, making him a potentially useful multi-inning piece for the Rays even if he isn’t able to find another gear in the majors.

Yankees Sign Logan Morrison

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3:20pm: The Yankees have announced the signing.

11:16am: ESPN’s Jeff Passan tweets that Morrison’s deal comes with a July 1 opt-out and a $1MM base salary at the MLB level (though that salary would presumably be pro-rated).

11:06am: The Yankees have agreed to a minor league contract with first baseman/designated hitter Logan Morrison, per Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com (Twitter links). He’ll head to extended Spring Training for the time being. Roster Roundup first tweeted the two sides were talking. Morrison is represented by ISE Baseball.

Morrison, 31, belted 38 home runs with the Rays in 2017 but struggled through an injury-ruined 2018 campaign with the Twins that was ultimately truncated by surgery to repair a torn labrum in his hip. That operation, performed last August, came with a roughly eight-month timetable for recovery; this contract falls right in line with the end of that rehab period. Once he’s up to speed and in game shape, Morrison will head to the Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate in Scranton.

New York recently lost first baseman Greg Bird for at least a month due to a case of plantar fasciitis, although given Morrison’s own health status, it’s unlikely that he’d be able to step up as an option to help in the short-term anyhow. That said, the Yankees’ roster has generally been decimated by injuries, and having Morrison on hand as a risk-free depth option at the Triple-A level to perhaps aid the lineup starting in mid-May or early June certainly won’t hurt.

Last year with the Twins, “LoMo” hit .186/.276/.368 with 15 home runs and 13 doubles through 359 plate appearances, although the hip issue that ultimately ended his season quite likely hindered him at the plate before he underwent surgery. His 2017 season was nothing shy of excellent, as he turned in a .246/.353/.516 slash with 38 homers, 22 doubles and a triple in 601 trips to the plate.

MLB To Issue Suspensions Stemming From Royals/White Sox Altercation

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Major League Baseball will announce a series of suspensions following this week’s brawl between the White Sox and the Royals, per reports from ESPN’s Jeff Passan and The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal (Twitter links). Royals right-hander Brad Keller will receive a five-game ban for throwing at White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson, while Anderson himself will be hit with a one-game ban “because of language used during the benches-clearing incident with Kansas City,” per Passan. Rosenthal adds that White Sox skipper Rick Renteria will receive a one-game suspension as well.

The benches-clearing incident in question — “brawl” is a questionable term for the majority of MLB on-field altercations — began with a Tim Anderson bat flip following a fourth-inning home run against Keller. Upon making contact, Anderson turned to his dugout, flipped the bat toward them and, as he tells it, yelled “let’s go” to fire up his teammates. Keller, taking exception to the showmanship, took the “old-school, unwritten rules” route and hit Anderson in with a pitch (on the hip/butt) in his next plate appearance. As is the case in every such instance, Keller transparently claimed after the game (and in an appearance on MLB Network this morning) that he was simply trying to bust Anderson inside, and a pitch “got away” from him.

The Anderson suspension is particularly surprising, as the only previous instances of a player being suspended for language have stemmed from using on-field slurs that transcend pure profanity. Passan, however, further tweets that Anderson was suspended for “racially charged” language heard by the umpiring crew. Keller’s suspension is standard in the case of pitchers throwing at players. While the suspension will cost Keller five times as much in terms of pay and MLB service time, suspensions for starting pitchers are always in five-game increments due to the fact that they ensure a pitcher will miss a start. (A suspension of one to four games wouldn’t necessarily cause a starter to miss any time at all.)

The debate over intentional plunkings has been ongoing for years, as traditionalists advocate for the upholding of “the code” of unwritten rules that has long been woven into the fabric of the game’s history. Detractors point to the fact that throwing at someone on purpose has the potential to seriously injure a player; it’s common to see pitchers badly miss a spot even when trying to throw a pitch for a strike, and it seems almost inevitable that an intentional beaning will eventually lead to a fractured wrist, concussion, etc.

Incidents like this one are now the source of further scrutiny given MLB’s “Let the kids play” marketing slogan, kicked off by an ad in which Ken Griffey Jr. calls for those “unwritten rules” to be thrown out in favor of players showing emotion on the field with celebrations for home runs, key strikeouts and other big moments. Commissioner Rob Manfred has been vocal about wanting to appeal to a younger generation of fans, and that campaign seems a key part of the effort. A second such ad aired leading up to the 2019 season, and MLB’s official Twitter account even tweeted the slogan in support of Anderson this week. If the league simply wanted to continue allowing players to “police themselves,” it wouldn’t be a surprising outcome to see them maintain the status quo. Continuing to administer a punishment that has proven meaningless, however, sends a contradictory message to the one they’re pushing in their marketing.

The debate isn’t confined solely to the game’s fan-base, of course. Players have been weighing in on the matter all week. CC Sabathia plainly stated on Buster Olney’s podcast this week (audio link) that he’s 100 percent in favor of bat flips and any other display of on-field emotion and doesn’t understand why a pitcher would be bothered by it. Reds lefty Amir Garrett tweeted that rather than throw at a batter in his next plate appearance, the pitcher should, “Strike him out, and do whatever you gotta do. Fist pump, moonwalk, cartwheel.” On the other side of the coin, Blue Jays outfielder Randal Grichuk tweeted that players have gotten “excessive” with their celebrations and called for more stoicism.

Red Sox Place Eduardo Nunez On IL, Promote Michael Chavis, Designate Erasmo Ramirez

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The Red Sox announced a series of roster moves Friday morning, revealing that they’ve placed Eduardo Nunez on the 10-day injured list (retroactive to April 18) due to a mid-back strain). Additionally, Boston has designated righty Erasmo Ramirez for assignment and recalled infielders Tzu-Wei Lin and Michael Chavis from Triple-A Pawtucket. It’ll be the MLB debut for Chavis, a former first-round pick who is currently ranked as the game’s No. 75 overall prospect by MLBPipeline.com.

Nunez will join fellow second basemen Dustin Pedroia and Brock Holt on the injured list. There’s no word yet on long he’s expected to be sidelined. The loss of that trio facilitated the promotion of Chavis for his first look in the big leagues as well as the return of the versatile Lin, who has been up and down with the Sox dating back to the 2017 season. While Chavis has been primarily a third baseman in his minor league career, he’s played 47 innings at second base in 2019 and has experience at shortstop in the past, as well. He seems likely to step up at second base for the time being with Boston’s other options on the mend.

Selected with the 26th overall pick in the 2014 draft, Chavis posted modest numbers in his first two and a half professional seasons before breaking out with a .282/.347/.563 batting line between Class-A Advanced and Double-A in 2017. He followed that up with a similarly impressive .298/.381/.538 slash across three levels in 2018 (topping out in Triple-A but spending the bulk of his time in Double-A), though it should be pointed out that Chavis’ 2018 campaign was shortened by an 80-game PED suspension.

This season, he was off to a .250/.354/.600 start in Pawtucket. Chavis is a bat-first prospect, drawing the most praise for plus raw power and a solid hit tool. Strikeouts are part of his game but haven’t been a huge problem for him, and he’s shown improved plate discipline in recent years as well.

Ramirez’s stint with the Sox will go down as a brief and forgettable one. The veteran right-hander made only one appearance with the Boston organization, allowing four runs on four hits (including a pair of homers) and a walk with one strikeout in three inning of relief. The Red Sox will have a week to trade him, release him or pass him through outright waivers; Ramirez would be able to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency anyhow, so this move seems quite likely to end his tenure with the Red Sox organization.

Though he had a poor year with the Mariners in 2018, Ramirez isn’t far removed from a three-year stretch (2015-17) in which he logged a combined 3.97 ERA with 7.0 K/9, 2.3 BB/9 and 1.2 HR/9 in 385 1/3 innings between Tampa Bay and Seattle. He has extensive big league experience as both a starter and reliever, and a club looking at adding some depth in either area could take a look at the righty, who won’t turn 29 until early next month. The Braves are known to be on the lookout for potential bullpen arms, for instance, while the Rangers haven’t been secretive about their desire to add rotation depth.

Minor MLB Transactions: 4/19/19

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We’ll track Friday’s minor moves from around the league here…

  • The Red Sox picked up left-handed reliever Jeremy Bleich on a minor league contract, MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo writes. The 31-year-old made his MLB debut last season with the A’s but totaled just one-third of an inning, allowing a pair of runs in the process. Brief as it was, that MLB debut surely meant the world to the longtime Yankee farmhand, who grinded through a decade in the minors and pitched in independent ball before reaching the game’s top level. Bleich enjoyed a strong year with Oakland’s Triple-A affiliate last season, pitching 51 1/3 innings with 8.4 K/9 against 2.3 BB/9 with a 53.1 percent ground-ball rate in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. He spent Spring Training with the Phillies but was cut loose when he didn’t crack the Opening Day roster. Given the uncertain state of the Boston ’pen, it’s possible that Bleich will earn a second big league opportunity at some point in 2019.
  • Catcher Stuart Turner has returned to the Reds on a minor league contract, as first noted by Roster Roundup (Twitter link). Cincinnati selected Turner, a former third-round pick by the Twins, in the 2016 Rule 5 Draft and carried him on the MLB roster for the entire 2017 season. He was heavily shielded from facing big league pitching, however, and hit just .134/.182/.244 with a pair of homers in 89 plate appearances. The Reds outrighted to Triple-A early in 2018, and he struggled to a .200/.265/.213 slash there in just 22 games during an injury-shortened season. Turner has never hit much but owns a 32 percent caught-stealing rate as a pro, and scouting reports have long pegged him as an above-average defender and receiver. That surely holds value to the Reds, if only to give the organization’s young pitchers in the upper minors a quality battery mate.

Minor-League Signees Seeing Significant MLB Action: Position Players

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It’s really too soon to say which minor-league signees are going to turn out to be exceptional values. But we can assess which have earned significant roles out of the gates. Whether they’ll be called upon with such frequency the rest of the way will depend in no small part upon what they do with the initial opportunity.

Let’s start by looking at the 16 position players that signed minor-league deals and have accrued thirty or more plate appearances. It’s a list chock full of notable names:

Gerardo Parra, OF, Giants: The veteran is receiving heavy playing time, leading all minor-league signees with 63 plate appearances, but hasn’t yet justified it with his play. Parra carries only a .218/.302/.327 slash on the year. The roster spot could be at risk if the Giants ultimately find a better use for it, but the club needs decent veteran play in the outfield at the moment.

Jesus Sucre, C, Orioles: Sucre has been the Orioles’ primary option behind the dish, bringing his usual blend of weak offense and solid defense to the table. He’s hitting just .213/.260/.255 through 50 PAs while catching four of eight would-be base thieves. Chance Sisco may eventually unseat him, but Sucre is locked into a prominent role for now.

Hanley Ramirez, DH, Indians: One of the most interesting minor-league signees to watch, Ramirez has generated a healthy 14.0% walk rate but has otherwise done little else of note. It’ll be interesting to see how much patience the Cleveland organization shows.

Curtis Granderson, OF, Marlins: Trusted with a big role, the respected veteran is struggling at the plate (.149/.268/.298). But the Marlins need a few players of this type and surely won’t be in any rush to push him off of the MLB roster.

Melky Cabrera, OF, Pirates: Thrust into an unexpectedly robust role, the Melk Man has delivered with his typically high-contact approach. He’s sporting a BABIP-driven .367/.392/.490 slash through 51 trips to the plate. The Bucs will reevaluate as time goes on and they welcome back some injured players, but Cabrera now has a path to a job all season long.

Logan Forsythe, INF, Rangers: After a few lost seasons, Forsythe settled for a minors pact and has settled in nicely in Texas. He has rediscovered his ability to play short from time to time and exhibited a revamped mastery of the strike zone thus far in 2019. The odds seem pretty solid that Forsythe will continue to hold down a roster spot with the Rangers.

Mark Reynolds, 1B, Rockies: Reynolds is walking more than ever and showing typically strong pop, but still isn’t anything close a league-average producer (83 wRC+) owing to his lagging batting average (.206) and adjustment for hitting at Coors. Odds are the Rox will continue to carry Reynolds as a bench bat and part-time first baseman, though it’s possible the calculus could change once the club’s at full health.

Yangervis Solarte, UTIL, Giants: The 31-year-old is being asked to move around the diamond, but he’ll soon be out of opportunities if he doesn’t get things going at the plate. He’s slashing a meager .200/.256/.300 through 44 plate appearances.

Jose Iglesias, INF, Reds: With Jose Peraza off to a dreadful start, Iglesias is receiving a bigger slice of the playing time pie. He’s not hitting a ton but remains one of the game’s most gifted infield defenders.

Derek Dietrich, INF, Reds: Another player that surprisingly failed to get a MLB deal and landed in Cincinnati, Dietrich is mashing thus far — albeit in a lopsided fashion. He’s carrying only a .200 batting average and .300 OBP but has launched four long balls and owns a hefty .629 slugging percentage.

Brad Miller, INF Indians: Though he was one of the team’s few solid offensive performers in the early going, Miller was jettisoned recently to make way for the return of Jason Kipnis. That sudden change of direction is a good indication of the uncertainty faced by players in this situation.

Lucas Duda, 1B, Royals: Though it’s still hard to understand why the Royals have set up their roster with so many defensively limited players, the veteran slugger is performing at the plate. Duda’s power is down some but he’s walking more than he’s striking out thus far. Barring a change in organizational philosophy, it seems he’ll continue in his role.

JB Shuck, OF, Pirates: As injuries mounted, the door opened wider in Pittsburgh. Shuck has responded with a .259/.429/.333 slash in 36 plate appearances to begin the season. That’s a nice development for him, but he’ll have to show quite a bit more to stave off an eventual roster cut.

Hunter Pence, OF, Rangers: Another veteran keeper in Texas, Pence has carried a middling .276/.323/.379 batting line to begin his comeback bid. He’s probably got some leash as a highly respected veteran but will ultimately need to show some life to stay on the MLB roster.

Nick Hundley, C, Athletics: He’s not hitting at all, but Hundley is a respected veteran receiver. The A’s could in theory make a change at just about any time but the club doesn’t have any other catchers in the organization with substantial MLB experience — at least until Chris Herrmann is back to health.

Peter Bourjos, OF, Angels: Already slated for a fourth outfielder job, Bourjos was thrust into a large role when Justin Upton went down. But he’s off to a wretched beginning of the year and is now firmly in danger of being dropped by the Halos.

Yankees Injury Notes: Severino, Andujar, Sanchez, Stanton, Tulo, Hicks

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Injuries are the story thus far for the Yankees, whose sluggish start is explained in no small part by a dizzying barrage of maladies. One of those has proven particularly confounding, as young starter Luis Severino came down with a lat strain while rehabbing a shoulder injury. As James Wagner of the New York Times reports, the investigation into the origins of Severino’s health problems has become a tale of its own. At this point, the team isn’t sure how that problem popped up; GM Brian Cashman says it wasn’t detected in the imaging that identified the initial shoulder problem.

In any event, there’s still five weeks to go until Severino can potentially start to throw once again. While he and the team wait for that important development, they’ll hope to welcome back a few other players. The latest …

  • The Yanks are at least open to considering utilizing Miguel Andujar as something other than a third baseman, manager Aaron Boone indicated to reporters including Wagner (Twitter link). Andujar’s shoulder injury hasn’t limited him much with the bat, but has made throwing difficult. Even if he’s able to avoid a surgical procedure, then, a return to the hot corner may be difficult. In that event, it’s possible he’d be utilized in the DH slot or perhaps even at first. Those possibilities aren’t yet being discussed in earnest, with Boone saying the club will wait to see how Andujar’s throwing progresses, but it now seems there are some new approaches on the table.
  • Backstop Gary Sanchez is still on track for a quick return to the active roster, MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch writes. In fact, with his calf injury evidently progressing well, he may be back when first eligible on Sunday. That’d be a nice boost for the lineup; the 26-year-old catcher had been back to his slugging ways before incurring the injury.
  • Outfielder Giancarlo Stanton also seems to be showing signs of nearing a return from his biceps injury, though he’s certainly still further off. Stanton has taken cuts off a pitching machine, as Hoch tweeted yesterday, though it’s still a bit uncertain when he’ll be fully ready for activation. It seems possible, but not certain, that Stanton could return before the club wraps up a lengthy West Coast road trip on May 9th.
  • Several other players are also progressing, but on less-certain timelines. Shortstop Troy Tulowitzki is also working back from a calf strain that is a bit more significant than Sanchez’s. (Via Hoch; Twitter link.) He’s participating in baseball activities and says he’s feeling good, but there’s still no indication when he’ll be ready. Outfielder Aaron Hicks is also engaged in a variety of baseball functions but hasn’t yet taken batting practice to test out his ailing back. He’s hoping to do so this week, Wagner tweets, which would perhaps clear the way for a rehab assignment.

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