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Archives for August 2019

Giants Designate Travis Bergen, Recall Abiatal Avelino

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The Giants have designated left-handed pitcher Travis Bergen for assignment and have recalled infielder Abiatal Avelino, according to Maria Guardado of MLB.com.

Bergen, 25, was selected by the Giants in last December’s Rule 5 Draft after spending the first four years of his professional career in the Blue Jays organization. If he clears waivers, the Giants will need to offer him back to his former employer—of course, the Blue Jays are not required to accept Bergen back into the fold, in which case the Giants could keep Bergen in their organization.

In his first taste of Major League action, Bergen has appeared in 21 games for the Giants, striking out 18 batters in 19 2/3 innings. Those numbers have in part led to a 5.55 FIP, which backs his overall 5.49 ERA. With Bergen no longer on the roster, top prospect Logan Webb looks like a good bet to stick around for an extended look, especially after an impressive debut.

Meanwhile, Avelino is slated to make his first big league appearance of 2019 after a six-game Major League stint in September of 2018. One of the fruits of the trade that sent Andrew McCutchen to the Yankees, the 24-year-old Avelino has spent the entire season in Triple-A. With a .771 season OPS, he’s regarded as the Giants’ No. 27 prospect by MLB Pipeline, which touts his arm strength from the shortstop position and his defensive versatility.

Astros Place Aledmys Diaz On IL, Activate Brad Peacock

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The Astros have placed infielder Aledmys Diaz on the 10-day injured list, according to Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle. Per The Athletic’s Jake Kaplan, Cy Sneed has been recalled to replace Diaz on the active roster, while Brad Peacock has also been activated from the injured list.

While there’s no official diagnosis for Diaz, Rome reports (via Twitter) that the 29-year-old was placed on the injured list after an incident on Saturday ended with Diaz in the hospital. Per manager AJ Hinch, the shortstop is in better health on Sunday and will travel with the team following today’s game.

With Sneed added to the roster, the Astros will carry nine relievers for the time being, a roster construction that will likely hold up very briefly, as Sneed could be replaced by a position player such as Myles Straw or Jack Mayfield.

Peacock, meanwhile, has not pitched for the Astros since June 27, at which point he landed on the injured list with shoulder discomfort. Peacock looked on track to return in mid-July, but a rehab setback prevented him from being activated until today. It appears that the 31-year-old will be deployed as a reliever in the last month-plus of the season after making 15 starts for the club prior to the All-Star break. The additions of Zack Greinke and Aaron Sanchez appear to have mitigated a need that forced Peacock into a starting role after spending nearly all of last season out of the bullpen.

Indeed, Peacock’s reintroduction to the Astros’ formidable pitching staff will only strengthen one of the American League’s juggernauts. While he’s certainly been a serviceable part of the Houston rotation this season, his numbers have taken a noticeable dip from the production he showed as a reliever in 2018, including his swinging strike rate, which sits at 8.8% in 2019 as opposed to 13.5% a year ago. If returning to a bullpen role allows Peacock to revert to the form he showed last year, his late-season return could prove just as valuable as Sanchez’s emergence as a viable starter.

 

Reds Place Joey Votto On IL

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The Reds announced today they have placed first baseman Joey Votto on the 10-day injured list with a lower back strain. Brian O’Grady has been recalled to replace Votto on the 25-man roster.

So continues a shockingly difficult season for the former NL MVP. Votto’s .262/.352/.410 line is the first below-average offensive performance of his career. In an era where seemingly every hitter is a threat to launch 20 home runs, Votto’s power has taken a massive dip over the past two seasons, as he’s sitting on 12 homers for the second consecutive year. As recently as 2017, though, Votto hit 36 homers and was arguably the Senior Circuit’s best hitter.

While Votto still has elite plate discipline (albeit not quite to the levels he once did), that lack of impact has to be concerning to Cincinnati, which still owes him $107MM over the next four seasons. There’s reason to believe the 35 year-old can still be a valuable player (projections, at least, believe he’s still a quality hitter based on his track record), the end of that extension certainly doesn’t seem favorable for an organization finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel after a difficult decade.

O’Grady is a 27 year-old first baseman with five career MLB plate appearances, so he’s unsurprisingly not near the top of any Reds’ farm rankings. Nevertheless, he’s had a strong run at Triple-A the past year and a half.

Nationals Likely To Activate Max Scherzer Thursday

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The Nationals will likely activate ace Max Scherzer on Thursday, manager Dave Martinez tells Jamal Collier of MLB.com (via Twitter). Scherzer threw a simulated game yesterday and came out unscathed.

Of course, a Scherzer return will be a boon to a Washington club holding onto a 2.5 game in the Wild Card standings. The Nats just lost their closer and have one of the game’s worst bullpens, so their starting rotation takes on outsized importance. Scherzer, meanwhile, remains arguably baseball’s best pitcher. His 2.41 ERA is tied for second leaguewide (minimum 100 innings), while his combination of strikeouts (35.3%) and walks (4.7%) is the best in MLB. Scherzer’s been among the best pitchers of this decade, having accrued 200+ innings with an ERA of 3.15 or below every year between 2013 and 2018. While the injuries will keep him from that 200 inning mark this season, he remains dominant as ever on a rate basis, making his return one of the most noteworthy around the league as we approach the season’s stretch run.

Nationals Place Sean Doolittle On Injured List

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The Nationals announced today they have placed reliever Sean Doolittle on the 10-day injured list with right knee tendinitis. Righty Kyle McGowin is up from Double-A Harrisburg to take Doolittle’s active roster spot.

We just heard Washington was considering cutting Doolittle’s workload back in recognition of his recent downturn in performance. Doolittle and manager Dave Martinez attributed his recent struggles to a heavy workload, but evidently there’s more than mere fatigue at play.

As we covered more fully this morning, Doolittle’s results and stuff have both gone backwards in recent weeks. This will mark the sixth consecutive season in which the 32 year-old hits the IL. It’s not immediately clear where the Nationals will turn in late-game situations, but Daniel Hudson and Hunter Strickland each have closing experience. As Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post points on (on Twitter), perhaps this opens the door for veteran Greg Holland, who signed a minor-league deal with the D.C. organization after being cut loose by the Diamondbacks. Holland had a strong end to the 2018 season with the Nats after an abysmal start in St. Louis. Any Holland promotion would require a 40-man roster move.

Immediately, though, it’ll be McGowin coming up. A starter throughout his time in the minors, the 27 year-old has been used in relief in eight of his ten MLB appearances with Washington. A former fifth-rounder of the Angels, McGowin’s a sinker-slider arm, the type who typically ends up in relief, but he’s been quite good in 15 minor-league starts in 2019 split between Harrisburg and Triple-A Fresno.

For Doolittle, this seems to all but ensure he’ll be back in Washington in 2020. Doolittle’s contract comes equipped with a $6.5 million club option which turns into a mutual option if he records the final out of 16 more games this season. Even considering his abysmal August, he surely would have topped that minuscule sum on the open market, so the ability to elect free agency would’ve greatly impacted his 2020 earning power and potential destination. While there’s no timetable for his return, it’s almost impossible to imagine he’ll close out 16 games from August 27, when he’d be eligible for activation if everything goes perfectly, through the end of the season.

Dodgers Activate Jedd Gyorko From IL

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10:54 am: Gonsolin’s promotion won’t merely be a one-day spot start. Manager Dave Roberts tells Ken Gurnick of MLB.com the rookie will stay on the active roster through at least next week to make one additional start.

9:04 am: The Dodgers announced today they have activated infielder Jedd Gyorko from the 60-day injured list. Additionally, the club has recalled right-hander Tony Gonsolin from Triple-A Oklahoma City and optioned right-handed reliever Josh Sborz and first baseman Edwin Ríos to clear active roster space (h/t to Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times). No corresponding 40-man roster move was required.

Gyorko’s first game back will also be his first as a Dodger. He suffered back and wrist issues while playing for the Cardinals, but LA nevertheless acquired him at the deadline while he was on the shelf. With the NL West all but a mathematical lock, the Dodgers could afford to acquire a player not healthy enough to contribute immediately who could play a role for them in October. Gyorko has experience at all four infield positions, although he’s probably best suited in the corners, and was a solid all-around player for St. Louis between 2016 and 2018. His injury-ravaged 2019 season means LA will almost certainly buy him out for $1M after the season, rather than exercise his $13MM club option for 2020, but he adds to the club’s already-enviable depth. He’s starting at first base today against Atlanta.

Gonsolin will start this afternoon’s game. The rookie is a solid prospect who has pitched well but not spectacularly with Triple-A Oklahoma City in abbreviated outings. Over 41.1 innings, he’s worked to a 4.35 ERA (better than it appears at first glance in the Pacific Coast League) with high strikeout (26.2%) and walk (11.0%) rates. He’s pitched quite well in three MLB appearances.

Sborz and Ríos, both 25, each made their MLB debuts in 2019 as well. Sborz tossed three innings out of the bullpen and has dominated in Triple-A this year, while Ríos raked in limited big league action as a lefty bench bat. The corner infielder has slashed .266/.339/.551 in Triple-A, which looks more impressive at first glance than it actually is. That output’s only six percent better than average for the level, although Ríos has a stronger track record of hitting in the high minors the past couple years.

Yankees Place Thairo Estrada On IL, Recall Tyler Wade

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10:18 am: Estrada suffered the injury running the bases in yesterday’s game, manager Aaron Boone tells Bryan Hoch of MLB.com (via Twitter).

10:06 am: The Yankees announced today they have placed infielder Thairo Estrada on the 10-day injured list with a right hamstring strain. Utiltyman Tyler Wade is up from Triple-A Scranton Wilkes-Barre to take his place.

Estrada, 23, made his MLB debut in April. He’s been up-and-down from Scranton all year, totaling his first 61 MLB plate appearances. Regarded generally as a utility prospect, Estrada’s .266/.313/.452 line in Triple-A is unremarkable. It was encouraging to see him healthy until today, though, as he lost most of 2018 after being shot in a robbery attempt in his native Venezuela after the 2017 season.

Wade’s ridden the Scranton-New York shuttle multiple times over the past three seasons. The 24 year-old has put up a .177/.250/.257 line (37 wRC+) in the big leagues, although he’s never gotten an extended run to get into a rhythm. Instead, he’s mostly spent time in Triple-A, where he’s hit fairly well and stolen a few bases but never shown enough power to play his way into the Bronx full-time.

Nationals To Reevaluate Ninth Inning

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The Nationals are reconsidering their usage of closer Sean Doolittle, manager Dave Martinez tells Mark Zuckerman of MASN. Any significant change could affect both the team’s 2019 postseason push and Doolittle’s employment in 2020.

Washington lost in fourteen innings to the Brewers last night, a game which bizarrely saw Milwaukee hit five home runs after the eighth inning, as the Athletic’s Jayson Stark points out (via Twitter). Beyond the sting of losing to a team now only two and a half games behind them in the standings, the marathon afair again magnified the organization’s biggest flaw: its relief corps. While questions about the bullpen’s depth have persisted for months (some might even argue years), now the unit’s one perceived measure of stability is taking the heat.

Doolittle blew a three-run lead in the ninth last night, surrendering a trio of longballs while recording just one out. He’s allowed multiple runs in three of his last five appearances and has coughed up seven homers in nine innings since July 29. That shocking stretch of ineffectiveness has pushed the veteran southpaw’s ERA to 4.33, a far cry from his 2.24 mark between 2017-2018. What’s more, his 25.5% strikeout rate in 2019, while solid, pales in comparison to the elite 33.9% figure he put up over the previous two seasons. In the aggregate, Doolittle’s numbers have dropped from stellar to average.

How can one explain Doolittle’s downturn? Both pitcher and manager believe his workload is taking its toll. Saturday was the reliever’s eighth outing of August, although his 54 appearances on the season only ranks 29th in baseball. Indeed, Wander Suero, not Doolittle, has actually been the Nats’ most-used relief arm. That said, a pitcher who spent time on the injured list every year between 2014 and 2018, as Doolittle had, may need to be handled with further care. Martinez acknowledged he and his reliever will meet today to discuss Doolittle’s workload, and the hurler himself reluctantly expressed a willingness to cut back on his innings, noting he hasn’t “been pulling (his) weight here these last couple weeks.”

It’s possible little will come of this reevaluation. After all, Martinez has worked Doolittle especially hard precisely because of the club’s lackluster bullpen. Daniel Hudson could stand to pick up a few save opportunities, but he’s pitched in 55 games himself and is a two-time Tommy John survivor, so the club surely won’t want to overload him, either (and his peripherals indicate he’d probably be miscast in that role anyhow). Tanner Rainey boasts an electric arm but an 18.8% walk rate, while Roenis Elías is out with a hamstring strain. Speculatively, fellow trade deadline acquisition Hunter Strickland could pick up a few ninth inning opportunities, but it’s obviously a suboptimal situation.

If the club does cut back Doolittle’s innings down the stretch, it’d be disappointing given the club’s slight lead in the NL Wild Card and still-manageable deficit in the NL East. Ironically, though, these struggles could be a boon to the club’s 2020 roster. As MLBTR’s Steve Adams noted Friday, Doolittle’s contract comes equipped with a $6.5 million club option which turns into a mutual option if he records the final out of 16 more games this season. Even considering his abysmal August, he could surely top that minuscule sum on the open market, so the ability to elect free agency would greatly impact his 2020 earning power and potential destination. If Martinez gets more judicious with Doolittle’s role to keep him fresh, the club could stand to pick up an extra year of control as a side benefit.

It seems from his comments Doolittle would be at peace with such a move, since he was forthright in admitting his recent performance has been unacceptable. Indeed, it’s not as if the club would limit his workload solely with the games finished clause in mind. There’s a real case to be made the player needs more rest. In addition to acknowledging some fatigue, Doolittle’s fastball velocity was down two miles per hour last night, and his fastball spin is trending marginally down with it. It behooves everyone involved to get Doolittle right sooner than later.

Yankees Activate CC Sabathia From IL

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As expected, the Yankees announced they have activated left-hander CC Sabathia from the 10-day injured list. He’ll start today’s series finale against Cleveland after missing around three weeks with right knee inflammation.

It hasn’t been a banner final season for the 39 year-old, who has been especially plagued by the league’s home run surge. Sabathia’s 2.39 HR/9 is by far the worst mark of his career. While a career-worst 38% ground ball rate surely plays some part in that, an unsustainably high 21.1% HR/FB rate has contributed to that whiplash. Sabathia’s strikeouts (21.1%) and walks (7.7%) in 2019 are identical to those he put up in 2018, when he gave New York a 3.65 ERA over 153 innings.

Sabathia’s a back-end starter at this point, clearly, but it’d still be nice for the Yankees to get some volume from him down the stretch. The Bombers have ridden a power lineup and stellar bullpen to a league-best 83-42 record despite a mediocre rotation.

AL Notes: Laureano, Harvey, Brusdar, Lourdes

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We’ll kick off this Sunday by taking a look at some injuries and minor-league news around the Junior Circuit.

  • Athletics center fielder Ramón Laureano is making slow but steady progress from a stress reaction in his shin, he tells Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle (via Twitter). Laureano plans to begin running next week in an effort to mount a late-season comeback. His July 31 injury was always expected to shelve him for at least a month, and there’s little indication his early-September target date to return has changed. The 25 year-old has quietly emerged as one of baseball’s better young players. In 595 MLB plate appearances since debuting last August, Laureano has coupled well above-average offense (a .285/.341/.506 slash, good for a 122 wRC+) with a flair for the dramatic on defense, even if he’s not always the most consistent at tracking down fly balls, per Statcast. His return would be welcome news to a club just a half game out of the league’s final postseason spot.
  • Laureano might not be the A’s only end-of-season reinforcement. Matt Harvey, whom the club brought aboard on a minor-league deal this week, acquitted himself well in his first action with his new employer, notes Melissa Lockard of the Athletic (via Twitter). Harvey tossed four scoreless Triple-A innings in the hitters’ haven that is Las Vegas, striking out five without issuing a walk along the way. He’ll obviously need more than one encouraging outing to erase the memories of his woeful past few seasons, but as MLBTR’s Connor Byrne noted Wednesday, it’s not hard to imagine Harvey factoring into the club’s uncertain pitching mix down the stretch.
  • Harvey isn’t the only minor-league pitcher who could impact his team’s playoff push in the coming weeks. As Do-Hyung Park of MLB.com pointed out, the Twins have pushed pitching prospects Brusdar Graterol and Jorge Alcala up to the minors’ highest level, where both will work out of the bullpen. The promotion of Graterol, a husky 20 year-old righty from Venezuela, will generate the most attention. A top 100 prospect at Fangraphs, Baseball America and MLB Pipleline, Graterol pitched well in 11 games with Double-A Pensacola. The organization surely hopes he can emerge as an above-average starter long-term, but it isn’t hard to imagine him contributing in the bigs in short stints imminently thanks to his plus three-pitch arsenal. Alcala, too, might factor into the Twins’ end-of-season bullpen, where command issues always figured to push him anyways. The 24 year-old Dominican righty was acquired from Houston in the Ryan Pressly trade last summer and boasts mid-high 90’s gas, but he’s long issued too many walks to be an elite prospect and has an ERA pushing 6.00 in Pensacola. Both hurlers have to be added to the 40-man roster this offseason to avoid selection in the Rule V draft, so the Twins could expedite their promotions a few months given their tenuous hold on the AL Central.
  • In non-playoff news, young Blue Jay Lourdes Gurriel, Jr. will get more clarity on a return date from a left quad strain after an MRI today, tweets Shi Davidi of Sportsnet. The 25 year-old has been out since August 9 and hopes to return by the end of the month. Gurriel’s yet to settle in defensively- he’s now playing left field after breaking in as a subpar infielder- and doesn’t sport great plate discipline, but he’s emerged as a solid right-handed power bat in 2019. Over 321 plate appearances, Gurriel’s hitting .279/.331/.548 (127 wRC+).

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