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Archives for August 2020

Yankees Recall Clint Frazier

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With Giancarlo Stanton sidelined, the Yankees have recalled young outfielder Clint Frazier. He had been on optional assignment at the team’s alternate training site.

While hardly a surprising move under the circumstances, it’s a notable moment for team and player. Soon to turn 26, Frazier has long seemed ready for extended MLB action but has not yet received a full shot with the power-packed Bronx Bombers.

Given the timing of the move, Frazier obviously won’t have a chance to accrue a full year of MLB service. He’s likely to stay up long enough to push past the line into two full seasons, at least, and may log enough to qualify for arbitration as a Super Two in the ensuing offseason.

Frazier did take 246 plate appearances last year at the MLB level. The former top prospect turned in a .267/.317/.489 slash with a dozen long balls — good but not world-beating production from a bat-first player.

The question remains whether Frazier can carve out a permanent role in New York. If not, and if Stanton is able to return to health, this could end up functioning as an audition for a potential trade.

Royals Place Franchy Cordero On 45-Day IL

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AUGUST 11: Cordero required a surgical procedure to repair damage to his right hamate bone, manager Mike Matheny told reporters including Alec Lewis of The Athletic (Twitter link). Young infielder Jeison Guzman will get his first crack at the majors. He was already on the 40-man roster but has now been tapped for active duty.

AUGUST 10: The Royals have placed outfielder Franchy Cordero on the 45-day injured list, per a club announcement. He is sidelined with a wrist injury.

While this won’t officially end Cordero’s season, it makes it quite unlikely he’ll return to action. He originally hit the injured list on August 9th, so he won’t be eligible to return until late September.

Soon to turn 26, the recently acquired outfielder struggled to a .154/.185/.231 slash in his first 27 plate appearances with the Royals. He’ll be eligible for arbitration over the offseason.

Latest On Giancarlo Stanton

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The Yankees got some promising news on sidelined slugger Giancarlo Stanton. The burly outfielder was diagnosed with a relatively mild grade 1 hamstring strain, per Jon Heyman of MLB Network (Twitter link).

With little reason to push Stanton now, the front-running Yanks already placed him on the injured list. He’ll no doubt be sidelined longer than the requisite ten days. But there’s now at least cause for hope that he can make it back to the roster in time to contribute down the stretch and into the postseason.

Stanton, 30, had turned in a resurgent effort at the plate in the early going. After missing the bulk of 2019, he was turning heads with a .293/.453/.585 batting line through 14 games this year. Better still, he had drawn ten walks to go with 11 strikeouts, a marked turnaround from the strikeout concerns that had cropped up since Stanton arrived in New York.

Now it’s back to the trainer’s room for a player who has been no stranger to it. Stanton has had prior hamstring issues, though that wasn’t among the particular problem areas that kept him off the field in 2020.

MLBTR Poll: Sustainable Hitter Breakout

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The trade deadline is approaching. Heck, the postseason races are already taking shape. But it’s still exceedingly early in this oddest of MLB seasons. With the action unfolding on a tightened timeline, it’s more necessary than ever not to ignore the short-sample alerts.

That said, it’s hard to ignore some of the unexpected names near the top of the WAR leaderboard with a quarter of a (partial-) season in the bag. Each of these six guys ranks among the top twenty fWAR accumulators in baseball. Four of ’em have added more value to this point of the season than living legend Mike Trout.

So … which player is likeliest to sustain something approaching their early 2020 star turn? (In alphabetical order.)

JaCoby Jones, OF, Tigers: .333/.391/.786 through 46 plate appearances. The 28-year-old hadn’t done much with his first thousand or so MLB plate appearances, but he’s suddenly knocking the socks off of the ball. Though his K/BB numbers are about as shrug-worthy as before, Jones is suddenly showing a whole lotta slug. He’s in the top ten percent leaguewide in barrel percentage and hard contact rate.

Kyle Lewis, OF, Mariners: .373/.440/.567 through 75 plate appearances. An elite draft prospect, Lewis saw his development stunted by injuries. He’s now coming into his own, though it’s hard to look past that glaring .512 batting average on balls in play. There are a lot of strikeouts, too, though Lewis is also walking at a decent clip (10.7%). While Statcast isn’t impressed with how hard he hits the ball, it does credit him with a strong barrel percentage and good wheels.

Dylan Moore, OF, Mariners: .333/.388/.689 through 49 plate appearances. This looks to be a pretty clear instance of a nice dozen-game hot streak that’ll be hard to keep up. Moore is carrying a 30.6% walk rate and 4.1% K rate while benefiting from a hefty .423 BABIP. Then again, Moore is legitimately hammering the ball, ranking among the league leaders in hard-hit rate, barrel percentage, and exit velocity. Perhaps he’s on to something here.

Austin Slater, OF, Giants: .333/.450/.667 through 40 plate appearances. Slater is running and gunning thus far, logging three homers and four swiped bags while sporting a solid 12.5% walk rate. That 208 wRC+ really pops for a guy that contributes in other areas of the game. Slater has had his chances before and hadn’t ever put it all together. But he was quite good at Triple-A and held his own in the majors in 2019. Could he be turning into a quality big leaguer?

Donovan Solano, INF, Giants: .458/.476/.661 through 63 plate appearances. This isn’t necessarily a whole new thing so much as a surprising continuation of a nice 2019 showing. But holy smokes, look at that batting average! It’s riding on a mind-blowing .520 BABIP … which follows a .409 mark from last year. Solano isn’t exactly mashing, but he sure is translating his contact ability into results — and not just because of good fortune. Statcast credits him with a 97th percentile expected batting average.

Mike Yastrzemski, OF, Giants: .306/.442/.629 through 77 plate appearances. Just another San Francisco superstar slugger, no big deal. Like Solano, Yaz 2.0 did turn in very good numbers last year. But we were all prepared to see him step back in 2020, right? Instead, there’s something all the more intriguing going on. Yasztrzemski has already drawn 15 walks to go with his 16 strikeouts on the season, providing yet more evidence that he has really figured things out.

So, which player is most likely to carry this forward? (Poll link for app users; response order randomized.)

Latest On Andrelton Simmons

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Injured Angels shortstop Andrelton Simmons is closing in on a return, manager Joe Maddon said Monday (via Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times). Simmons, who landed on the IL on July 28 with a left ankle sprain, has progressed to taking batting practice.

Ankle problems have slowed Simmons since last season, during which the 30-year-old totaled only 103 games played. Simmons’ well-known defensive wizardry continued then, but his offense dropped off a cliff compared to his respectable 2018-19 performance. Still, as Jeff Todd of MLBTR explained, Simmons entered this season as an especially interesting pending free agent. Thanks to the shortened campaign and the time he has already missed, though, Simmons doesn’t have much time to rebuild his stock before a potential trip to the open market.

Since Simmons went down in the first week of the season, the Angels have turned to David Fletcher at short. Fletcher has been highly productive so far, and the Angels surely want his bat in the lineup every day, but he’s versatile enough on the defensive side to move around the diamond. That will give Maddon the freedom to pencil the two in on a daily basis when Simmons is able to return.

MLB Reportedly Considering Playoff Bubble Format

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Coronavirus outbreaks have already had a significant impact on the truncated Major League Baseball regular season, as teams such as the Cardinals and Marlins have been sidelined for extended periods since the campaign opened a couple weeks ago. That type of outcome would be even more catastrophic if it were to occur during the playoffs, so the league is at least considering a bubble format for the fall, Jeff Passan of ESPN.com reports.

According to Passan, the majors could mimic the National Hockey League in designating multiple cities to host its postseason. The NHL has turned to Edmonton and Toronto for its playoffs, and the league has so far been able to pull it off. MLB, on the other hand, has dealt with great adversity this year in allowing almost all of its teams to play in their home cities.

In the event baseball does follow the hockey model for the postseason, MLB would likely use “at least three hubs” during the wild-card round, Passan writes. That number would drop to two for the LDS and one or two for the LCS and World Series. There is still no one area that’s considered a front-runner for playoff baseball, but with so much revenue on the line, one official told Passan, “If we want to make sure we get through October, we really need to get this right.”

Pitching Notes: Hamels, Quintana, M’s, Tigers

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Left-hander Cole Hamels, whom the Braves placed on the 45-day injured list July 23, still has not thrown off a mound during his recovery from a triceps problem, Mark Bowman of MLB.com tweets. The Braves remain hopeful Hamels will pitch this year, though, per manager Brian Snitker. Of course, Hamels isn’t eligible to return until early September, so the Braves will get a very limited season from him at best. That wasn’t the outcome either side expected when the Braves signed the longtime workhorse to a one-year deal worth $18MM deal during the offseason. The Hamels injury is one of many issues the Braves’ rotation has encountered since then (most recently, they optioned lefty Sean Newcomb on Monday in the wake of a horrid performance), but the back-to-back NL East champions are still off to a solid start at 11-7.

  • Cubs southpaw Jose Quintana will throw a three-inning sim game Tuesday, Bruce Levine of 670 The Score reports. However, there’s still no word on when Quintana will make his 2020 debut after suffering a left thumb injury over a month ago. Even without Quintana, though, the Cubs’ rotation has come storming out of the gates. Entering Monday’s action, the Yu Darvish–Kyle Hendricks–Jon Lester–Tyler Chatwood–Alec Mills quintet was second in the game in FIP (2.76) and fourth in ERA (2.83)
  • The Mariners placed right-hander Carl Edwards Jr. on the injured list with a flexor mass strain in his forearm and recalled fellow righty Bryan Shaw from their alternate site, Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times relays. Edwards’ injury sounds worrisome, though manager Scott Servais said it’s “not that serious.” But as Servais noted, even a couple weeks lost in a 60-game season is a significant amount of time. It’s unfortunate for the M’s and Edwards, who combined for an awful run in Chicago and San Diego from 2018-19 but who has come back nicely this year. He yielded one earned run on two hits and one walk (six strikeouts) across 4 2/3 innings before landing on the IL.
  • The Tigers placed righty Buck Farmer on the IL on Monday with a left groin strain and recalled righty Beau Burrows, per Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press. Farmer was a bright spot on a bottom-feeding Tigers team a year ago and has kept runs off the board at an even better clip this season, having allowed just two ER on four hits and three walks in 6 2/3 innings. On the negative side, Farmer has struck out only one hitter after fanning almost 10 per nine in 2019.

Rays Place Charlie Morton On 10-Day Injured List

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9:02pm: Rays manager Kevin Cash said he’s optimistic Morton will return when he’s eligible Aug. 20, Eduardo E. Encina of the Tampa Bay Times tweets.

10:03am: The Rays have placed right-hander Charlie Morton on the 10-day injured list due to inflammation in his right shoulder, the team announced Monday morning. Lefty Jose Alvarado was reinstated from the paternity list in a corresponding move.

Morton, 36, exited Sunday’s outing after just two innings due to fatigue in his shoulder. The veteran righty said after the game that he wasn’t concerned with missing much time, but the organization clearly felt there was at least a need for a short-term reset. It’s been a tough start to the year for Morton, who has seen his fastball velocity dip by about two miles per hour as he’s worked to a 5.40 ERA in his first 16 2/3 frames.

Morton is still missing bats and throwing strikes, but his ground-ball rate has plummeted from 48.2 percent a year ago to 34 percent in 2020. With the uptick in fly balls has come an uptick in home runs; Morton yielded just 15 long balls in 194 2/3 frames in 2019 (0.69 HR/9) but has surrendered three so far in 2020 (1.62 HR/9).

The 2020 season is the second of Morton’s two-year, $30MM contract with Tampa Bay. He justified the cost of the contract — and then some — in year one of the deal alone, when he pitched to a 3.05 ERA and finished third in AL Cy Young voting. The Rays have an option over Morton for the 2021 season, and that option will now become quite interesting, depending on how long the right-hander is sidelined. The value of Morton’s option is tied to time spent on the injured list — which he avoided entirely in 2019. The option would settle at $15MM with fewer than 30 days on the IL between 2019-20 but could still drop to $10MM or even $5MM if he misses substantial time. (The option could’ve also landed at $3MM or $1MM, but that would’ve only happened had he missed considerable time in both seasons of the deal.)

Major League Baseball and the Players Association reached an agreement last month to prorate the qualifiers needed to unlock roster bonuses, vesting options, etc. As such, the 30-day figure that Morton would’ve needed to come in shy of is also prorated. An exact 10-day stint on the IL would still leave his option price at that $15MM mark, but if he misses even a couple days more than that, the value of his option would drop to $10MM. MLBTR confirmed as much earlier this year.

The Rays would open themselves up to a potential grievance if Morton’s camp felt he was being kept on the injured list just to drive down the value of his 2020 option, although the velocity drop and shoulder fatigue could certainly be used as justification for their decision. For now, it’ll be telling to simply see how long Morton remains shelved and whether any further diagnosis is provided.

Braves Option Sean Newcomb

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The Braves optioned lefty Sean Newcomb to the team’s alternate training site after tonight’s game. He’ll remain on the 40-man roster and in the 60-man player pool.

This is the latest in a series of hits to the Atlanta rotation. In this case, as with Mike Foltynewicz, it’s simply a matter of inadequate performance.

Newcomb, 27, was bombed in a forgettable start this evening. He recorded only four outs while doling out a pair of walks and a pair of long balls and permitting eight total earned runs.

That performance represented another segment of a roller coaster season … which is itself but a part of a rather topsy-turvy career. The southpaw has had his share of success but never quite fully found his groove in the majors.

In 2018, Newcomb emerged as a solid rotation piece, running a 3.90 ERA in 164 frames. He ended up spending most of last year in the bullpen, where he worked to a 3.04 ERA in 51 appearances.

The Braves had cause to hope that Newcomb might step up when the opportunity arose to return to the rotation. Instead, he’ll have to earn his way back to the active roster. It’s back to the drawing board for the club, which will have to dip into the farm for another arm to start (or help man a bullpen game).

Dodgers Outright Terrance Gore

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The Dodgers have outrighted outfielder Terrance Gore, Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register tweets. He had recently been designated for assignment.

Gore will remain in the Dodgers’ 60-man player pool. He will remain available to the team if and when there’s another opportunity at the MLB level.

In addition to potential fill-in duty, Gore could be a late-season or postseason option. He’s a fleet-footed, highly regarded fielder who hasn’t been allowed to swing the bat much at the MLB level. Gore has appeared in each of the past seven campaigns, logging forty stolen bases and just 77 plate appearances (including two this year with L.A.).

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