11:55am: The A’s have placed Piscotty on the IL and recalled infielder/outfielder Franklin Barreto from Triple-A Las Vegas, the team announced.
8:53am: Athetics right fielder Stephen Piscotty exited the team’s win over the Angels on Saturday with a right knee sprain, Oakland announced. Piscotty incurred the injury while sliding into second base and then needed assistance getting off the field (video via Martin Gallegos of MLB.com). The A’s aren’t “a hundred percent sure” Piscotty avoided a tear, according to manager Bob Melvin, so he’ll undergo an MRI on Sunday.
A stint on the IL looks like a possibility for Piscotty, who hasn’t been on the shelf since suffering a groin injury with the Cardinals in 2017. Piscotty didn’t even go to the IL earlier this month after undergoing surgery to remove a melanoma from his right ear. The 28-year-old has been a mainstay in the A’s lineup since they acquired him prior to last season, having appeared in 151 games in 2018 and 76 during the current campaign.
While Piscotty was one of the A’s best players during their playoff-bound ’18, his numbers have gone backward for the postseason contenders this year. Across 328 plate appearances, Piscotty has batted .242/.306/.391 (88 wRC+) with nine home runs. Still, considering Piscotty is clearly Oakland’s preferred option in right, having to go without him would be a burdensome task for the club.
Aside from Piscotty and primary left fielder Robbie Grossman, only Chad Pinder, Mark Canha, designated hitter Khris Davis and Skye Bolt have racked up corner outfield starts for the A’s in 2019. Grossman has been a liability against left-handed pitchers, while Pinder has struggled against righties. Conversely, Canha has held his own against pitchers of either handedness, making him one of the A’s premier hitters in general this season.
This man can’t catch a break.
Don’t give him any ideas, or that might be what he tries next…
exactly my first thought
The A’s could always make a trade for the sought after, wonderful player. JON JAY.
Or we could not do that!
Martini, Bolt, Barreto. All players I’d prefer to see before a trade for Jon Jay.
It was sarcasm. Every year at this time we hear how Jay can help a competing team down the stretch. He did wonders for Arizona last year…NOT.
Never forget the ever-overvalued “veteran presents”!!
Too bad for the injury. On another note I really thought he was going to be putting up AS #’s by now. Looks like Stl made a wise decision.
Because STL has done what since he was traded? Their RF position is a joke.
Yes, made a ‘wise decision’ trading a guy so he could be closer to his mother, then way overpaid for Dexter Fowler. Very wise.
a wise decision? the A’s got Piscotty for minor league filler…
Munoz has been on ML the majority of his time in STL
But hasn’t been a major league regular, and when he was they exposed him and he looked bad. The other guy included in the trade, Max Shrock, fell off a cliff at Triple A, proving that he was the tweener everyone thought he was.
“minor league filler” – bro the guy is literally in today’s starting lineup and Munoz was a top 15 org guy, not “filler”.
Max Schrock (massively overrated by a bunch of A’s fans) was the filler part, lol
I will take a call up of one of Barreto, Mateo, or Neuse please!
Barreto it is. What has Barreto done this year? Oh you know, slash .296/.379/.549 in Triple A, and show more defensive versatility than he ever has in his career. The last two months have been particularly impressive.
Barreto through April: .205/.353/.373
Barreto from May to now: .335/.391/.624
Barreto this month: .387/.402/.802
This does 2 things. Gives them a player off the bench with power and gives Barretto a chance to prove he is ready. Increases his trade value too if the A’s take that route.
hopefully he won’t get the Skye Bolt treatment or the treatment he got earlier this year…I really wanted Mateo strictly for the zoom factor and defense, but it really looks like Barreto is finally taking to the advice of the team in regards with hitting…
I would only see them trading Barreto for a controllable arm, which come next season SHOULD be wholly redundant with the amount of upper ceiling rehabbing arms who are currently healthy and performing better than expected…realistically, you could even put Holmes and Jefferies in the bp for long relief, negating the need to even sniff the reliever market next year.
Cant wait to see how Oakland does after they add Luzardo, Puk and Jefferies to the pitching staff in the second half, replacing Brooks, TAnderson and Schlitter. I think it might be good?
Zack Erwin (Lawrie trade alert) probably will be ready by September too, as a sneaky bullpen piece. He looks great out there as a RP.
I like Jefferies out of the pen. That strikeout to walk ratio is the stuff of wet dreams.
Puk has 13 K in his first 7 IP of the year….
Barreto in todays starting lineup, playing 2B hitting 7th behind Laureano. Loving the lineup today with Pinder in RF and Canha at DH.
Wow that’s a gay comment
How about those BABIPs though? Mateo, Neuse and Barreto are all around .380, so in no way can those AAA numbers predict what they are going to do in MLB, and wise money would be on the under. Moving from the most hitter-friendly parks in the country to the least -might- not end up well for any of those 3. Might being the imperative word. They also could mash, we don’t know, but the main thing is the numbers are too skewed to tell right now. That whole league needs to move its fences out.
Barretto has always been a good power hitter. His problem has always been walks. To many strike outs and needing better defense.
I’m more or less looking at their numbers at parks like Nashville, Memphis, Sacramento, etc….which are still really good.
Las Vegas uses a humidor to cool the core of the ball, but it’s still flying because it’s the major league ball in Triple A this year, as opposed to the older ball they’re still using in Double A on down.
Barreto’s line away from Las Vegas this month is still .375/.394/.786, and that’s in Memphis, Nashville, Fresno and Sacramento.
Barreto is just a work in progress the A’s have to live with, but they have been doing a poor job of it, allowing the natural-1B Profar to “play” 2B with massive yips for most of the year, all while stinking with the bat – Barreto could have done all of those things this whole time while being younger and cheaper, just like Oakland allowed Semien to do at SS. We all knew this but Oakland’s FO makes really bad moves kinda more often than advertised, especially on things like using the IL and playing short way too many games a year.
Barreto’s short stints in MLB have shown he’s got massive power, way more than originally graded. I think his floor is Rougned Odor, with a ceiling of an all-star, so the A’s blocking that on purpose to make Profar play out of position really grinds my gears.
So he’s still not walking and his BABIP is too high. I’m not saying he won’t get to MLB and mash – hope he does, he’s a great kid – but these numbers are literally all static, the only meaningful ones we can use are good pitching numbers, because if can throw up 0’s in -that- environment, you probably can do decent in MLB.
I don’t disagree with most of this, except for Oakland’s FO making bad moves. They make moves based on their very well defined philosophies. It’s neither right nor wrong, it is what it is. Do I wish they had given Barreto a chance this year instead of going out and getting Profar? Yes. Do I understand why they went out and got Profar? Also yes. The A’s were very right handed heavy this year, which isn’t a bad thing, but the A’s have been about “match ups” life for years.
We’ll see what Barreto does with this new opportunity. If he can just avoid chasing and make that good, hard contact on balls in the zone we know he can make pitchers will stop throwing him breaking pitches. Profar could find himself out, or relegated to the bench until he figures it out.
And to hit on the “he still isn’t walking” comment, he was walking A LOT earlier this year. He’s still a young kid, but we’ve seen two versions of Franklin Barreto this year. The patient Franklin Barreto, that still strikes out a bit too much, and the attack mode Franklin Barreto, that still strikes out a bit too much. We’ll see if it gets exposed at the major league level, but if guys are throwing you things to hit, why not hit them?
Can’t speak on defense because advanced defensive metrics aren’t available in the minors, and even if they were we’d need another year before we know exactly where he’s out. However, he was walking a lot early on in the year when he was hitting, then started really hitting, and taking less walks.
He’ll still need to cut the strikeouts, but as long as he’s being productive we can live with them.
That “match ups” thing also grinds my gears. Just get players who don’t have splits and hit both sides equally well for once!
Piscotty has great second half numbers last year too this sucks
Barreto’s time…